


blackugou widow

by wonhaebunny



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Bakugou Katsuki, Bakugou Katsuki & Midoriya Izuku Friendship, Bakugou Katsuki-centric, Gen, Protective Bakugou Katsuki, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 50,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22146253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonhaebunny/pseuds/wonhaebunny
Summary: In one world, Natasha Romanoff takes her final breath, and in another, Bakugou Katsuki takes his first.-Alternatively: Black Widow is reborn as a blonde trash goblin with a whole lot of anger issues. Things go a little differently.
Relationships: Akaguro Chizome | Stain & Bakugou Katsuki, Bakugou Katsuki & Class 1-A, Bakugou Katsuki & Hatsume Mei, Bakugou Katsuki & Midoriya Izuku, Bakugou Katsuki & Shinsou Hitoshi, Bakugou Katsuki & Yagi Toshinori | All Might
Comments: 1690
Kudos: 4785
Collections: A Collection of Beloved Inserts, BKG AC, Best Fics From Across The Multiverse, Identity Crisis, K.Bakugou, Kacchan is different (but still the same), Mixed_Fics, Quality Avengers Fics, Reincarnation and Self Insertion, Reincarnation and Transmigration, Stories That Are Cool, oc self insertSI, progress





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> trying my hand at a reincarnation fic ,,, anyways i cant STAND THE TITLE OF THIS GOD DAMN FIC,,, oomf suggested it as a joke but i honestly had no better ideas so it will stay as such until further notice!  
> also this fic is an excuse to write about bakugou with knives and guns bc i am very attached to the idea of him with knives and guns but also i do not want to write a spy au so here we are

Katsuki doesn’t cry when he’s born. The nurses jostle Mitsuki, excitedly telling her what a resilient boy he is, how strong he’s going to be when he’s older. Mitsuki watches those red eyes, so similar to her own, yet so different. Katsuki watches back. She holds his gaze for a few long moments, and he stares back intently, with intelligence that a newborn baby shouldn’t have. Nurses bustle in the background, gently patting her on the back, putting away dirty sheets and tools. He’s absolutely gorgeous, eyes a piercing crimson and blonde hair matted against his tiny crown. He watches her, long after he’s taken from her arms and placed in a basin to be cleaned off, and then into a cot. Mitsuki lets herself sink into her hospital bed, and smiles. Her beautiful boy has been born, and he’s perfect. He didn’t cry once, even the nurses are delighted, and she’s so _proud_. She’s still smiling when she finally slips into an exhausted slumber, and his gaze lingers on her turned back long after the lights are dimmed. 

He doesn’t cry the next day, or the day after that. Mitsuki is unsettled at first, but she decides it’s a blessing—Katsuki is her first, and she’s heard enough horror stories to know that a baby’s crying will grow to be a nightmare. So she lets herself be relieved, grateful that her son is so low-maintenance, so sweet, and decides to enjoy the silence while it lasts. And it does last. It lasts and lasts, and lasts some more. They’re taking Katsuki home in the car, finally discharged from the hospital, and he hasn’t cried once. He watches her, eyes steady and unwavering and _dissecting_ in a way that makes her look away instinctively, before she mentally slaps herself for it. That’s her _baby boy_. She looks back, and smiles at him gently. He stares back. The ride is long. 

When three weeks have passed and Katsuki still doesn’t cry, the relief turns to concern. No parenting manual prepared her for this—this placid, imperturbable infant. He doesn’t even cry when he’s hungry, or when he’s uncomfortable. She tosses and turns, wondering if he’s sick, or there’s something wrong. But Masaru assures her that he’s just clever for his age. Of _course_ he’s clever, Mitsuki knew he would be. He’s _hers_. But when she takes him to a play group and sees all the other babies sobbing, hands clenching in their mothers’ shirts like the babies in the Pinterest photos that she’d fawned over in the early stages of her pregnancy, she feels amiss. He nestles primly in her arms, watching the other wailing infants unblinkingly as he fiddles with a button on Mitsuki’s shirt. Frazzled mothers look at him in jealousy, at her baby boy sitting pretty and still in her grasp, and ask her how she does it. She doesn’t answer, doesn’t know _how_ , and just smiles. And somewhere inside her, she feels that same pride she’d felt when the nurses had patted her on the back. Her Katsuki might be a little off, a little too smart, but he’s _hers_. And she’s damn lucky to have him. 

At two and half months, Katsuki has started to babble. He gurgles happily, stubby fingers reaching for any and everything in his grip. He doesn’t cry. He’s crawling by six months, and by seven he’s forming words. The sounds are unfamiliar on his tiny tongue, falling out roughly like mismatched puzzle pieces. Mitsuki is yet to see a single tear fall. Inko brings her boy around now, and they start to hold playdates. Katsuki is only three months older than Izuku, but the green-haired infant is nothing like her son. He cries constantly, little face screwing up at the slightest inconvenience, at _nothing_. He’s absolutely lovely, pudgy little fingers clinging to Katsuki’s shirt as he wails. Katsuki doesn’t push him off, but there’s an adorably petulant curl to his lips at the younger boy’s loud cries. Mitsuki and Inko take _so_ many photos.

Katsuki is eight months old when she finds the knife in his cot. She thinks she’s hallucinating, first, when she goes to check on her son and finds him curled around her kitchen blade, sleeping soundly. His soft, tender skin is close, too close to the blade, and she feels her heart stop. Already ready to give Masaru the verbal beatdown of his life when he gets home from work, she reaches into his bed to shakily extract the blade, only to halt in her tracks when Katsuki’s eyes snap open and latch onto hers. His small fingers reach to cling to the knife, tightly in the way that babies do, and she flinches violently as the edge cuts through soft skin, and blood begins to well up at his fingers. But he doesn’t cry, doesn’t let go. His eyes stayed fixed on hers. Swallowing thickly, she reaches down again to take the knife, but pulls back instantly when his grip tightens around it, earning another droplet of blood. 

“Give mommy the knife, darling,” she whispers, hands trembling in fear. He watches her, grip unfaltering on the blade. “Katsuki, give it to me. Please?”

He babbles something back in his weird baby speak, which has now developed into something that is somehow more coherent, clear, yet no more understandable. “Sweetheart, give it to me,” she says again, failing to keep the desperation out of her voice. He babbles something back again, and without looking away from him she reaches her other hand to take her phone and call Masaru.

He rushes home, and ten minutes later he stands with her and looks down at Katsuki in worry. Mitsuki is almost hysterical at this point, at the sight of the blood that is beginning to stain his baby blue blankets, and Masaru is just as lost as she is. Katsuki watches them both warily, still gripping the knife tightly enough that Mitsuki won’t look away from it. It takes forty minutes for them to back off and him to relax enough to fall back asleep, and Masaru finally takes the knife from his grip smoothly. Katsuki wakes up again as it happens, face scrunching so much in fury that Mitsuki thinks he might actually cry for the first time. But he doesn’t. Instead he frowns, brow furrowed, and lets Mitsuki shakily wrap his hand with a bandage. That evening, she moves the knife block to a high cabinet. It takes a stool for her to get to the knives now, which is a bitch when she’s cooking, but every time she considers moving it back she’s reminded of tender skin wrapped around metal, and blood seeping into cotton, and suddenly the stool doesn’t seem like a big deal. 

It’s when Inko’s visiting that it’s pointed out. 

“He’s _talking_ ,” Mitsuki says. “It’s just not… words. He’s not speaking Japanese, he’s still speaking some weird baby language. I catch hints of Japanese here and there and that’s it.”

Inko sips at her coffee, and watches the blonde boy from where he sits with Izuku in front of the television. She swallows slowly, before saying, “Well, you know, Mitsuki… I didn’t know if I was just being silly, but… Doesn’t it sound kind of like English? When he talks sometimes?”

She says it hesitantly, but the thoughtfulness of her tone betrays the amount of time she has spent thinking about this. Mitsuki hums around a forkful of cake.

“But I never taught him English. Hell, I don’t even speak it myself. There’s no way he could have learned it from me.”

Inko nods, still watching the two boys absently. 

“I guess you’re right. Well, he’s definitely smarter than any other baby I’ve seen, so he’ll get to talking soon. Don’t worry, Mitsuki.”

And that’s that. Until two weeks later, when they’re at the grocery store and Mitsuki turns away for _two goddamn seconds_ only to look back and find Katsuki babbling away to some stranger. They seem to be holding an actual conversation of sorts, more fluent than any of the disjointed and short ones Mitsuki has held with him. The stranger perks up when he notices her watching, and beams. “Your son is very clever! He speaks very articulately for someone his age, and speaking _English_ at that!”

Mitsuki stares at him, and then turns to stare at her son. Katsuki blinks back guilelessly, still grinning from his previous chatter as he fiddles with the zipper of her handbag. 

“Excuse me,” she says, and then picks up Katsuki and fucking _books_ it out of the store, abandoning her basket of groceries completely. When Masaru gets home, she glares at him tearfully. 

“No more television for Katsuki,” she announces. He blinks at her in confusion. “I never put it on for him,” he says. 

“Well I sure didn’t! So why the fuck _else_ is my Japanese son speaking fluent English while he can’t speak more than two words of Japanese at a time?”

Masaru’s brow furrows, and he crouches down to look at their son.

“Katsuki, darling,” he says gently, before adding in English, “ _What’s your name?_ ”

Katsuki, to Mitsuki and Masaru’s utter shock, chirps back a happy “Katchuki!” as he bounces from his spot on the couch. 

Masaru smiles at him, and swallows before speaking again. “ _And how are you?_ ”

Katsuki beams at him, reaching up to fist a hand in his father’s business shirt. 

“ _Goo’! ‘M goo’!_ ”

Masaru shares a look with Mitsuki, and she slowly moves to put the television remote in a higher cabinet. They don’t talk about it again.

By the time Katsuki reaches his second birthday, he’s speaking Japanese properly. He holds conversation with Mitsuki and Masaru and Inko like any other baby, and the English is forgotten. Izuku is only three months younger, but he still struggles with consonants, and takes to calling the other boy ‘Kacchan’. It’s adorable, but for Mitsuki it’s just another reminder of how different the two really are. 

Katsuki is quiet, only really speaking when he’s spoken to and still managing to find his ways to some knife one way or another. It really freaks Mitsuki out at first, but she soon figures out that he’s not really in any danger of hurting himself unless they try to take the knives away from him. He forms weird fixations, to things like the knives, and also to Mitsuki’s eyeliner pencils. 

When he’s three years old, he sees a ballet dancer on the television and is instantly enraptured. It’s the first time he’s ever been this interested in a television program that isn’t All Might-related. He watches the entire twenty minute show, and at the end he turns to her with shining eyes and points at the screen. “I wanna do that,” he announces. Mitsuki beams at him, happy to hear that her son is interested in something that doesn’t involve knives, and enrolls him eagerly before he inevitably begins to shun all things delicate as ‘girly’, as boys tend to do. 

The master at their local ballet studio, Saki, is surprised and a little hesitant given his age, but her delight at having a male student outweighs this and she agrees to having him in her class after watching as he gazes at her stretching students, captivated. Izuku soon asks to join after noticing his Kacchan doing so, but quits after one class when he finds his attention span isn’t really fit for ballet the way Katsuki’s is. Katsuki, on the other hand, flourishes. He’s a natural at it, and outperforms all the girls in his class easily within a month despite his age. Saki absolutely adores him, beaming whenever he saunters into her lessons weekly. He forms somewhat of a soft spot for her, too, and reserves a special little smile for her that is so lovely that Mitsuki can’t even bring herself to be jealous. 

Katsuki can read fluently by the time he’s four, already narrating Izuku’s storybooks to him confidently and basking in the green-haired boy’s awe. His quirk manifests around this time, too. He comes home from the park with red, raw palms adorned with painful blisters. His eyes are glassy with tears but he doesn’t let them fall, scrunching his face up to blink them away. Mitsuki bandages his palms, and takes him to a quirk doctor. After this day, he spends all his time reading. He reads science books, math books, whatever books he can get his hands on. He doesn’t understand half of the words, but he pores over the pages anyway like he’s possessed. Any time he’s not at ballet classes or school, he’s reading. Mitsuki lets him, hopeful that this will translate into a good habit for his academics in school. (It does). His teachers all gush about him; his confidence, his natural leadership skills, his studious nature even at this age, his control over his quirk. Mitsuki has never been prouder. 

A few months after this, Inko breaks the news that Izuku is quirkless. Mitsuki braces herself for a conversation with Katsuki, feeling her heart break for her best friend and her son. But she doesn’t get a chance to have this talk with him, because the next day she is called into the principal’s office and told her son had started a fight at school. She doesn’t ask him anything, doesn’t speak until they’re sitting in the car. He’s sullen, arms crossed and glaring at the dashboard of the car. Mitsuki glances at him. 

“Did you really hit that boy, Katsuki?” she asks finally. He nods unhesitatingly, still glaring at the dashboard. This isn’t him—this isn’t _Katsuki_. She knows he wouldn’t do anything like this.

“Why did you do that?” 

At this, he turns his angry red eyes on her, and scowls. “They called Izuku names,” he mutters remorselessly. “They made him cry.”

Mitsuki’s brow furrows, but she can’t bring herself to be mad when she sees that familiar glint in his eyes, that same protective glint she had seen in herself when Inko used to get shoved around in high school. 

“What did they say to him?” she asks finally. His fingers curl around the edge of his seat tightly.

“Said he was useless,” he grits out. “Said he’s no good ‘cause he’s got no quirk.” His hands start to shake, with the familiar smokiness that precedes his explosions beginning to drift through the air. She rolls down a window calmly, before leaning forward to gaze at him intently.

“And what do you think about that?” she asks.

His fiery red eyes return to meet hers. “I think they’re _stupid_ ,” he spits. “Izuku is Izuku, a quirk doesn’t mean _shit_.”

And Mitsuki knows she should be telling him off, honestly, _what mother lets their four-year-old swear?_ But she can’t help the beam that overtakes her face, as she wonders once again how she was blessed enough to have a son like Katsuki. He’s only four, and already so _good_. She reaches over to pull him into her arms, and he falls into them with little resistance. “I love you so much, sweetheart,” she says into his hair. “You’re my angel.” 

He squirms out of her grasp to stare at her uncertainly. “You’re not mad?” he asks. She shakes her head, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “No, not for this. But next time I’d like you to tell a teacher instead of hitting.” 

He pouts, and burrows back under her armpit.

“I told sensei yesterday. She didn’t do anything. She laughs at their jokes, too. Makes ‘zuku sad.” 

He falls silent for a moment, before glancing up at her. “Mama?” he calls quietly, vulnerable in a manner rare enough that Mitsuki almost startles.

“Hm?”

“I wanna be a hero when I grow up.”

She laughs, finding herself completely unsurprised. 

“I knew you were gonna get there at some point,” she says, and he blinks at her. 

“You gotta buy me knives, then, mama. For hero stuff.”

She jerks away instantly, giving him a frustrated look.

“What _is it_ with you and knives, Katsuki?” she asks in exasperation. He grins at her. 

“They’re fun.”

“What about ballet?”

“That’s fun, too.”

“What, you wanna do ballet _and_ play with knives?”

“Yup.”

She sighs, before ruffling his hair.

“If I get you some proper ones and sign you up for training, do you promise to stop sneaking the kitchen knives under your pillow?” she asks in resignation. He nods eagerly, and she sighs in defeat. It’s unsafe, and pretty much poster potential for bad parenting, but at this point literally nothing in the parenting books applies to Katsuki.

_Guess she’s buying her four-year-old son knives, now._


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOL i'm not gonna lie i was a little (read: very) stressed to post this because from the comments it seems like you all have a lot of high hopes for this au and its potential and i really don't know how to meet them HHHH but moving on i'm posting it anyway!! accept this trash pls,,, also ive come to the realisation that this whole fic is just adults enabling katsuki to do things he really SHOULDNT be allowed to do
> 
> // also the italicised sentences during speech are english!! //

Katsuki realises something might be wrong with him when he’s six. He’s sitting at school during English class, and the girls in front of him are braiding each others’ hair. Now, Katsuki would normally be too busy paying attention to the lesson to be noticing these things, but English has always been a bit of a bludge subject for him. It’s always come easy—too easy. Not just easy like the other subjects, where he answers questions at the blink of an eye and gets full marks on tests without studying, but easy enough that he can pick out flaws in his teacher’s accent when he tunes in. Easy enough that sometimes he feels like he can express himself in English class better than at home. The words come out smoothly in this class, like a dam has been removed and suddenly all the water is flowing out. So here he is, watching the girls braid their hair clumsily, as his fingers itch to fix their lopsided twists. Why, he doesn’t know. _How_ , he doesn’t know. But his fingers itch. His teacher chats on in the background, reading out a conversation from their book. She’s way too into the story, in Katsuki’s opinion, but the other kids eat it up.

“ _I like to read, says Emily,_ ” she says animatedly, and Izuku is fucking _rapt_ , rocking back and forth as he listens with wide eyes. The twisting of the girls’ fingers in each others’ hair has become more consistent, more confident as they continue. The braids look a little nicer, but Katsuki’s fingers don’t itch any less. 

“— _I like to watch movies, too! What do you like, Natasha?_ ”

Katsuki’s head snaps up so quickly his neck twinges. His teacher startles, and he stares at her, head spinning. 

“What,” he says loudly. The class goes silent. Katsuki’s skin starts to buzz, all down his arms and neck, and his fingers itch so much that he presses them between his legs to stop them from shaking. 

She gives him a slightly concerned look.

“Is everything okay, Katsuki-kun?” she asks warily, and swallows, legs bouncing under the table with energy that appeared from nowhere.

“What did you say?” he asks, almost desperately. She blinks in confusion, before slowly turning back to the book.

“Ah, this line. _What do you like, Natasha_? Do you have any questions about it, Katsuki-kun?”

The name bounces around his head, echoing back and forth until it stops, fitting somewhere deep in his brain and staying there. _Natasha_. He stands abruptly.

“I would like to use the bathroom,” he says quickly, and she blinks again, before nodding her permission—albeit hesitantly.

He scrambles out of the room, almost sprinting to the bathroom to lock himself inside a stall. Pressing his forehead to the cool wood of the door, Katsuki sucks in a deep breath. _Natasha, Natasha, Natasha_. When he repeats it in his mind, he can almost hear it in another voice—in dozens of different voices, overlapping. A man’s, a woman’s, a child’s. He hears it with an American accent, and in a British one. He hears— _Natalia_. Katsuki’s head is spinning so fast that he has to lean against the wall, a dull ache creeping into the back of his head. 

He straightens, absently curling his arms through the _port de bras_ that his ballet teacher, Saki-sensei has taught him. He moves from first position to fourth, unable to do the second or third within the tiny cubicle. The headache dies down slightly with the familiar motions, but his head continues to spin.

He distantly registers the sound of the bathroom door swinging open, and then rushed footsteps approach his stall.

“Kacchan?” Izuku calls from outside his cubicle. “Are you feeling okay?”

Katsuki heaves a heavy breath against the door, and swallows thickly around the lump in his throat.

“Izu. Can—can you say it again? What sensei said?”

There’s silence from the other side, and then Izuku hums. 

“Ah, the English? _What do you like, Natasha?_ That was it!”

The way the word falls off Izuku’s tongue is wrong. It doesn’t fit right, doesn’t sound the way it _should_ , but it still sends a shiver down Katsuki’s back. There's a click in Katsuki’s mind, like something that he didn’t even know was broken has been fixed. 

“Oh,” he breathes to himself. “I—oh.”

He doesn’t mention it to his mother when he gets home, doesn’t answer Izuku’s incessant questions the next day. But late at night, he hunches over his desk and shakily writes out the letters in his notebook. _Natasha, Natasha, Natasha. Natalia._ They scrawl over pages and pages, different sizes and levels of neatness. One evening he dreams he’s hanging from a cliff, the sky painted hues of purple. He dreams of holding onto the hand of a faceless man, of letting go. When he wakes, his fingers are reaching for the butterfly knife under his pillow before his eyes are even open. _Natasha._ He carves the name into the wall behind the headboard of his bed, deep enough that the paint chips, and then pushes his bed back into place so he can cover it. He stays up that night, knife at his side and fingers twisting braid after braid into the fringes at the edge of his blanket. 

  
  


When Katsuki is seven, he finds out he can speak German. It’s not a huge revelation this time, nothing that sends him into another existential crisis. He’s walking down the street with his parents, and he overhears a man on the phone. He’s arguing, yelling at who Katsuki assumes is his wife, about how she’s being immature and bitchy. Katsuki only realises that he hadn’t been speaking Japanese hours later, as an afterthought, when he recalls the conversation in his head and runs the words over his tongue. _Oh_ , he thinks. Another thing that I can do without ever having learned it. _Neat_.

His childhood consists of a number of these revelations. When he turns nine, his parents buy him a set of Perfect Point throwing knives for his birthday. He’s so excited to test them that he goes straight to Kenjirou-sensei’s gym. Kenjirou-sensei is a retired bodyguard who worked in America, and he’s a _badass_. He’s all muscle and scars, and his hair is shaved down and dyed blonde. He teaches Katsuki how to throw knives, and when no one’s watching he teaches him other things too, like how to fight with a Bo staff or nunchakus. This time, however, Katsuki runs into him using a gun. He freezes, staring from outside the glass window as his sensei fires a rapid volley of bullets at a bullseye target, tearing holes into the inner circle of the board uniformly. When Kenjirou-sensei turns around and spots him, he doesn’t jump but his eyes betray his fleeting shock at Katsuki’s presence. After a moment’s hesitation, he gestures him into the gym.

“What are you doing here today, Katsuki? Isn’t it your birthday?”

Katsuki nods, eyes transfixed to the gun in his coach’s hand. Kenjirou-sensei follows his gaze to the weapon, and quickly places it back onto the table.

“Not this, Katsuki,” he says firmly. “This is dangerous.”

Katsuki tears his gaze upwards to give him a deadpan look, and then gestures to the throwing knives in his own hands. The man snorts but shakes his head all the same, and Katsuki’s glare dissolves into a rare pout.

“It’s my birthday, please? Just once?”

He gives Katsuki an assessing look for a moment, before wilting in defeat.

“Alright, just once. Only for today. But you gotta listen carefully to what I tell you to do, yeah? Can’t believe I’m about to give a nine-year-old kid a fucking gun.”

Katsuki beams, reaching out for the weapon eagerly, and the man gives him a stern look before dropping it into his hand. 

The second it falls into Katsuki’s hand, his grip molds around it instinctively. His fingers are a little too short, palm a little too small for the butt of the gun to rest properly, but it feels oddly _right_. It _fits_. He turns it around in his hand, awed, vaguely aware of Kenjirou-sensei giving him instructions in the background. The man is slipping a pair of headphones over Katsuki’s ears, holding out a pair of glasses. 

Without a word, Katsuki wraps both hands around the butt of the gun with an ease that is far too practised, even to him, and turns around to fire four bullets into the white circle in the centre of the target. Each bullet meets the exact same spot, and his body braces for the recoil instinctively. The weight of the gun is nice in his hand, the metallic smell bringing the tiniest of grins to his face. The headphones are suddenly tugged off his head roughly, startling him out of his musings, and he turns to face an ashen Kenjirou-sensei.

“Katsuki, what the _fuck_ ,” he says, half-hysterically. Katsuki puffs his cheeks out sheepishly, and Kenjirou-sensei rubs a hand over his face. “No really, _what the fuck_.” The man looks like he’s aged ten years suddenly, one hand placed over his chest. “Where did you fucking learn how to do that, kid?” he asks, taking the gun from Katsuki’s hand quickly, and the blonde boy shrugs. 

“Dunno, just felt right.”

His coach looks like he wants to cry.

“Katsuki, you’re _nine_. How the fuck did firing a gun like _that_ just _feel right_ to you?”

Katsuki doesn’t answer, doesn’t know _how_ , and the itch returns under his skin again. Kenjirou-sensei seems to sense his discomfort because his glare softens and he places a hand on Katsuki’s shoulder. 

“Hey, you’re fine. I would be worried if I didn’t know how good of a kid you are. I was just surprised. And also really goddamn impressed. And _scared_ , Katsuki, give a man a _warning_!”

The man steps back to give him an appraising look, and finally leans in close to whisper.

“You got a talent there, Kats. How about we train you up for a little bit and if you’re real good I’ll get you one of these for yourself when you turn thirteen?” At the way Katsuki’s eyes light up instantly, he hastily tacks on, “With your parents’ permission, obviously.”

This does nothing to dim the excitement in Katsuki’s grin, and the boy skips all the way home, throwing knives all but forgotten for the day. When he gets back and tells his parents that Kenjirou-sensei’s gonna buy him a gun when he turns thirteen, they instantly and simultaneously pale, and his mother’s on the phone angrily yelling at the man in the blink of an eye.

To his credit, Kenjirou-sensei sits through the entire lecture and simply says at the end, “He’s your son, you know how he is. If I don’t get him one he’s gonna find one himself. Might as well train him for it.”

Katsuki’s mother, unable to argue, simply hangs up and turns to give Katsuki the most exasperated glare he’s ever seen. He beams at her, leaning up to press an innocent kiss to her cheek and then dancing over to the kitchen to eat some cake. 

  
  


By the time Katsuki is eleven, he’s carrying knives with him everywhere. During school, he keeps them strapped to his body at all times, wearing baggy uniforms to hide them. On any good day, he’ll have at least twelve knives on him, and on bad days more. Izuku is accustomed to it, and no longer startles when Katsuki gets bored and throws them at trees during lunchtime. Katsuki tried teaching him once, but the dumbass ended up nicking his thumb with the tip of the knife and crying until Katsuki hid the knife away again and reluctantly kissed the tiny cut.

His ballet classes are now twice a week, and Saki-sensei has moved him up to the adults’ class after he got bored in the kids’ one. Over the years, he has found an innate ability to speak Chinese, Italian and Russian fluently, much to the bemusement of his teachers, parents and himself. Kenjirou-sensei spars with him three times a week, starting to incorporate knives into their spars without the knowledge of Katsuki’s parents. One day when his mother walks in to pick him up when a session runs late, she catches Katsuki throwing a knife at the man’s head and screeches so loudly that Katsuki’s ears ring.

When he’s twelve he tries on a pair of his mother’s heels for fun, and walks so effortlessly in them that he reduces her to jealous tears. 

“How are you doing this?!” she cries, and he grins, kicking a leg into the air smoothly.

“Shit’s easy, lady. You’re just weak.”

It takes him two hours of cuddles and a manicure to console her.

The day Katsuki turns thirteen Kenjirou-sensei gets him that gun. It’s a Glock 26, weighty and sleek and black and _perfect_. He doesn't ask where sensei got it, or how many strings he had to pull to be able to gift it to a fucking _thirteen-year-old kid_. He just straps it to his waist where it quickly becomes a permanent fixture along with his knives. The first (and last) time a teacher notices it, they freeze and Katsuki has to build some bullshit story about toy guns and being prepared for police work if being a hero doesn’t work out. The dumb woman buys it, smiling at him encouragingly and telling him he’d make a wonderful police officer. He’s offended at the implication that she thinks it’s possible heroics _won’t_ work out for him, but he smiles anyway and lets her walk away. 

He’s also thirteen when their teachers start telling them to make plans for after middle school. When he says he’s going to UA, his homeroom teacher pats him on the back. Moments later, when Izuku says it, he receives awkward laughter. Katsuki thinks this is fucking bullshit, obviously, and yells at his stupid bitch of a teacher until she stammers out an insincere apology. He glares at her, spitting out some more curses before turning to a wailing Izuku. 

“Kacchaaan,” he cries, face scrunched obnoxiously ugly in gratitude. Katsuki shoves him away roughly, explosions itching at his hands. God, Izuku has such a punchable face sometimes.

  
  


Katsuki is fourteen when he has his first real fight with Izuku. The boy approaches him one day after school and tells him he’s not gonna apply for UA. 

“I just… I think the teachers might be right, Kacchan. There really is no chance for me without a quirk.”

He looks so sad, so heartbroken at his own admission, and Katsuki decks him in the fucking face so hard he spits blood.

“You _asshole_!” he yells, and the green-haired boy reels back in shock. Katsuki wants to punch him again.

“I fucking stood up for your ass for _years_! I covered for you time and time again, and now you’re gonna trust the word of some shitty _teachers_ over me?”

The other looks devastated at his words, and Katsuki shoves him back again mercilessly.

“Did my support mean _nothing_ to you? Did it not matter that _I_ believed in you? Was I not enough?”

He masks his hurt when he doesn't get a response, doesn’t get a denial. Heaving a deep breath, he steps back to glare at his childhood friend viciously.

“So you’re giving up? That’s fucking it, you’re giving up because some shitty random told you to?”

The silence he receives, the wide eyes and lack of words is enough. He scoffs, turning on his heel and walking away. He pauses, just before he's out of earsight, and throws over his shoulder, “I guess they were right. You really are a Deku.”

He doesn’t let himself wipe away his own tears until he’s alone.

  
  


The next day he ignores Izuku, refusing to soften when the other turns those heartbroken kicked puppy eyes on him. “Kacchan—” the boy begins, and Katsuki slams his books down on the table, staring at the board pointedly. Izuku wilts and heads back to his desk.

Of course, he doesn’t even get to stay mad at the shitty crybaby for the entirety of a fucking day. One second he’s walking home alone, and the next thing he knows he’s wrapped in cold and he can’t fucking _breathe_. He chokes on tar and watches as civilians crowd him, as heroes stand back and watch him without doing _shit_. 

_Ah_ , he thinks. _Just what I always wanted, an up-close demonstration of a villain attack_. 

The villain is going on some shitty monologue that sounds even more underwhelming than they do on television, and Katsuki still can’t fucking breathe. _Hello, dying over here? Anyone fancy doing their fucking job?_ He finds the energy to glare at the gathered pro heroes, even despite the white spots dotting his vision, because he’s a petty bitch like that. 

  
The villain wraps its slimy arms around his mouth, and he bites down, gagging as the sludge turns to liquid, filling his throat. He tries to reach for his knives, can’t even move an arm against the restraints. And he hates to admit it but he’s _scared_. He’s been in a lot of deep shit throughout his life but he’s never been this helpless, this trapped. He’s never been so weak. Everyone just stands and watches, and he wonders if this is what hero society has come to. Huh. Maybe Izuku was on the right track with that shit about giving up on being a hero. Maybe it isn’t all it’s built up to be anyway. The irony of the situation would make Katsuki laugh if he wasn’t too busy dying.

But speak of the devil; just when he’s lost pretty much all faith, he hears that goddamn screeched “ _Kacchan!_ ” that’s been the bane of his existence for the past ten years. He tears his face away from the villain just in time to see Izuku’s stupid ass sprinting towards him, face contorted in fear as he hurls a backpack at the villain. Time seems to slow down as the backpack makes impact, before sinking into the sludge like it was never there. Well, _that_ was fucking useless. Izuku falls short, stopping in his tracks to stare at the monster that now looms over him. “Oh, _fuck,_ ” the dumbass whispers, and the villain rears up to stare at Izuku judgmentally. Katsuki can’t even be proud that the nerd finally grew the balls to swear, because he’s too busy wanting to shoot himself. Izuku is a fucking _idiot_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not sure if i want any slash in this fic,,, guess i'll have to see where it goes hehe
> 
> edit: about the guns - this is something that i noticed while writing but didn't really take time to mention!! i fully understand how unrealistic it is to be giving a kid a gun, let alone one that's this young and unqualified legally. but let's pretend it's not as big of a deal in the world of bnha,, when people are walking around with quirks that decay matter by contact and allow literal MIND CONTROL, i doubt much attention is being given to laws surrounding gun control and such. honestly, i wouldn't be surprised if gun control laws just stopped being a thing that people took seriously, purely because they're so insignificant and mundane in a world of quirks. please ignore this huge plot hole (???) for the sake of katsuki channelling his inner natasha :')


	3. three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof big chapter here!! sorry it's a bit of a mess i just wanna get to the UA stuff already hehe

Just when the sludge monster is closing in on Izuku, All Might comes to save the day. _Of course_ he does. He punches the villain away hard enough that the entire city shakes, and the civilians and surrounding heroes all cheer and it’s the _beautiful_ movie ending. Because fuck Katsuki’s probable newly acquired boatload of PTSD, right? The reporters all flock around All Might with their flashy cameras, and Katsuki turns on a trembling Izuku and punches him hard enough to knock out two of his teeth. 

“What the _fuck is wrong with you_?” he yells. “Are you fucking _suicidal_ , Deku?”

The boy shrinks back, having the nerve to look ashamed as if he hadn’t just run headfirst into his own death moments ago. Katsuki steps forward to punch him again, and it takes three police officers to tear him away.

“ _Fuck you, Deku_!” he spits, before tearing out of their hold and storming away. The cameras follow him, and he has to duck his head to shield his angrily teary eyes from their view. Izuku is so, _so_ stupid and if he had died Katsuki would have brought his ass back just to kill him again.

He keeps walking until he’s out of view of the cameras, and continues to walk aimlessly for a while as he calms himself down. His hands are still shaking when he walks into a convenience store and slams a bottled energy drink on the counter, paying for it wordlessly. He realises, moments later, however, that he has absolutely _no idea_ where he is. 

The convenience store is one he’s never been to before, in a narrow, shady-looking alley. The store itself is equally shady-looking, albeit pretty much empty save for one or two people. He takes the drink and heads off quickly, realising that this is the exact type of place his parents have told him to avoid, and ends up walking straight into another person in his haste. 

“Shit,” he says eloquently, still slightly disoriented as he blinks up at the person.

The guy in front of him is _huge_ , bandaged arms each the size of Katsuki’s fucking torso and wearing spiked boots that are fucking _badass_ , in Katsuki’s opinion. However, most noticeably, he lacks a nose. Said nose-less man stares down at him. “What’s a kid like you doing around here?” he asks, voice rough and drawling. Katsuki crosses his arms stubbornly. 

“The fuck, am I not allowed in conbinis anymore? Talk to me when you get a nose, asshole.”

To his confusion, this draws a loud, booming laugh out of the man, instead of the murderous intent Katsuki had expected. Well, he’s not complaining. 

“Orudera, hm?” he mutters, leaning forward to finger Katsuki’s name badge, close enough that he has to fight the urge to lean back. “You’re quite far from home, Katsuki-kun.”

Katsuki flicks him away, before unscrewing the drink bottle and chugging half of it at once. 

“Yeah, well. People suck,” he explains matter-of-factly, earning another low chuckle. 

“You’re right about that, kid.” He’s looking at Katsuki differently now, an interested glint to his eyes. “Say, what do you want to be when you’re older?”

Katsuki straightens.

“I’m gonna go to UA and become the number one fucking hero,” he announces. The man clicks his tongue at this.

“Ah, a hero fan. How… disappointing. Heroes really aren’t all they’re built up to be, kid.”

Katsuki finishes off the drink. “Suck a dick, old man. I don’t care what you think,” he says coolly. Nose-less dude sits down on one of the stools facing the window. “You’re not offended,” he observes blandly. Katsuki tosses the empty bottle in the bin, and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Am I meant to be? Half the heroes right now are fucking half-assed trash. That’s why I’m gonna beat them all.”

The man taps a spiked toe against the vinyl floor and pats the stool beside him slowly. “Sit, kid. You’re interesting,” he drawls. Katsuki hears a voice at the back of his head screeching at him to get the fuck out of this shady-looking conbini and get the fuck home _now_. The voice sounds suspiciously like his mother’s, and he shoves it at the back of his head and plops down on the seat with a shrug. Whatever, the guy’s fun to talk to, and his boots are cool. It’s not like Katsuki’s got anything better to do anyway. 

“Why the fuck do you hate heroes so much, old man?” he asks curiously, leaning against the counter. The other rests a scarred palm against the edge, pushing forward to look him in the eye. “It’s not heroes I hate, Katsuki-kun. It’s fakes. People who call themselves _heroes_ to earn money and fame… they disgust me.”

Katsuki shrugs, drawing circles into the plastic tabletop. “Valid, I guess,” he mutters, earning a surprised laugh. The man watches him with an unreadable expression, and after a moment of thoughtful silence, he holds out his hand. 

“Akaguro. Akaguro Chizome. But you can call me Stain.”

Katsuki is considering shaking it when his phone rings in his pocket. He fishes it out, wincing slightly when he sees his mother’s contact. 

“Ah,” he mutters. “I have to go. Have fun hating heroes or whatever, old man. I hope you find a nose soon.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, turning on his heel and promptly marching out of the store to the sounds of Stain’s fading chuckles. 

Katsuki realises when he’s trudging home, his mother screeching at him over the phone wildly, that he may have just become almost sort-of friends with an honest to god villain. 

_Fuck_.

He doesn’t talk to Izuku for the next two months. He trains and trains and _trains some more_ , going to bed every evening with more muscles aching than not. He practises with Kenjirou-sensei almost every day, and wakes up at 5 in the morning to run. He diets, too, cutting out the already tiny amounts of sweets he used to eat in favour of more protein.

His classmates notice it, pointing out how much muscle he’s put on. He preens under the praise but when he stands in front of the mirror in his room and examines the hard bulk of his biceps and abdomen, his skin starts to crawl slightly. His body feels heavier in a way that he’s not used to, shoulders broad and muscles foreign and _weird_. He tells his mother this and she cackles about him being unused to having muscles instead of being a _stick_ , and he doesn’t have the heart to tell her that it’s different.

  
  


A month from the entrance exam, Izuku approaches him. He’s put on weight too; more than Katsuki, to the blonde’s eternal surprise. Katsuki has been focusing on maintaining a lean figure, to help him stay weightless and streamlined in the air while using his quirk, but Izuku—Izuku looks like he’s been pumping barbells every day.

“Kacchan,” he says shakily, muscle growth doing nothing to improve his timid hunch. “I’m gonna be a hero.”

Katsuki stares at him from where he’s filled in his high school application sheet.

“What changed?” he asks flatly. 

Izuku wrings his hands together.

“I… I have a quirk, Kacchan.”

At this, Katsuki actually straightens up to fix him with an unimpressed glare.

“No shit,” he scoffs, and Izuku frowns at him.

“I _do_! I know it’s—it’s hard to believe and I’m sorry I can’t tell you more, but… I just came to tell you that I’ll be sitting the UA exam. I’ll be a hero too, Kacchan.”

He bows, and turns without another word to walk away. _Damn_ , Katsuki thinks. The nerd really _has_ grown a spine. 

“Oi, Deku,” he says, halting the other in his tracks. Izuku freezes, but doesn’t turn around to face him. Katsuki pushes up from his table to stand in front of him, forcing Izuku to meet his eyes.

“What, you think you can get a quirk and magically become a hero? You think not having a _quirk_ is what was holding you back? Newsflash, _dickhead_ , having a quirk doesn’t mean _shit_ if you aren’t willing to work for it.”

Izuku’s face twists, expression contorting into one of frustration.

“T—that’s easy for you to say, Kacchan. You’ve never had to- to _deal_ with not having a quirk. You don’t know what it’s _like_ —”

Katsuki holds up a hand wordlessly, cutting off the other boy in his tracks.

“Then I’ll show you. I’ll show you, Deku, that I don’t need a quirk to get into UA. Watch me.”

He brushes past the green-haired boy and out of the classroom, a deep ache panging in his chest like something is digging into his ribcage. He realises, belatedly, that it’s _hurt_ —hurt at Izuku’s lack of faith in him, in _himself_. It’s frustration at Izuku thinking he can run around and laugh and become a hero without ever _trying_ , while Katsuki busts his ass daily working toward the same goal, and then blame it all on his quirklessness at the end of the day. 

That evening Katsuki skips training. Instead, he opens his computer and browses the UA website for their protocols regarding permitted support gear and weaponry in the entrance exam. It turns out that UA is _really_ chill with weapons. As in, concerningly chill, like _why the fuck do they not have any restrictions on weapons?_ Most of their guidelines are designed around the assumption that support weaponry will be utilised in relation to or conjunction with an applicant’s quirk, but that’s the thing—they don’t flat out specify it. So technically? Katsuki has free reign to use whatever support gear he fucking _wants_. He doesn’t even _need_ a quirk, he could hypothetically bring a flamethrower into these entrance exams, and the school couldn’t stop him. Huh. 

So he trains with tools for the remaining month before the exam. He doesn’t work on his quirk beyond basic exercises, much to the confusion of both his parents and Kenjirou-sensei. He knows the entrance exam will feature robots, so he instead focuses on his knives, and puts in an express order for support weapons from an external company. To his eternal frustration, his parents refuse to let him bring his gun. However, the nunchakus he receives a week later from the support order are fucking _badass,_ if he does say so himself. Expensive, sure, but fucking _cool_. They’re electroshock nunchakus, an unassuming grey colour while switched off, but when Katsuki presses the button at the bottom they glow a bright, electric blue. He has to wear insulated gloves while he uses them, made of a thin, flexible black material. Kenjirou-sensei is half-convinced they’re not legal but Katsuki likes to remind him that _he_ is the one who supplies guns to thirteen year olds, and his sensei conveniently falls silent. 

Unfortunately, he doesn’t get the chance to test the nunchakus out on a real person or robot, largely because he doesn’t really want to get arrested before the exam. Instead, he practises on mannequins, trash, and pretty much anything else in reach. (He fries the television at one point when he misses a shot at the wall, but watching the electricity pulse through it is _so_ worth the verbal beat-down he gets from his mother.)

Soon it’s the morning of the exam. Katsuki’s mother sends him off with a kiss on the cheek and promises of pain if he injures anyone with the nunchakus. He wears simple workout clothes, modified to be insulated in an all-black ensemble that’s loose enough to conceal the eight knives and countless shurikens he’s strapped and tucked into various places around his body. The nunchakus hang from a loop on his belt, looking for all the world like a normal set while switched off. Gloves tucked into his pocket, he trudges off to the exam. When he gets there, all the other students give him a wide berth at the sight of his expressionless face.

The written exam is a fucking breeze, no surprise there. He finishes it and triple-checks it with twenty minutes to spare, and ends up folding paper cranes with the working out paper to pass the rest of the time, earning a number of dirty and exasperated looks from the other students. They then move on to the practical exam, which is the fabled _robots_ that they’ve heard so much about.

He watches Present Mic embarrass himself in front of all the applicants for a few minutes, and then follows the other students into the grounds. Apparently all the other applicants are fucking idiots, because when Present Mic gives a totally predictable surprise start, he’s the only one to move. 

He walks forward, relaxed, and doesn’t even falter when a two-point robot comes lumbering around a corner. It’s bigger in person, towering up to at least five metres tall. Hearing screeches of fear from behind him, he realises that the other applicants haven’t moved from their starting place, presumably still in shock about Present Mic’s abrupt start. He smirks, turning his arm to fit a shuriken between his thumb and pointer, and smoothly flicks it straight into the crease between the robot’s torso and right limb without stopping his walking forward. _Bingo_. The robot stutters, making a series of clicking noises before collapsing into a neighbouring building with a crash. Katsuki has studied this exam inside out, knows these robots better than he knows _himself_. He ducks under the robot’s twitching body without a backward glance, plucking the shuriken out of the cracked metal as he hears the students behind him jump out of their stupor and start to run forward with mutters of, “What the _hell_ is that guy?”

By the time he gets to the next robot, still walking leisurely, at least fifteen students are standing in front of it, staring up at it in horror.

“Dude, it’s even bigger in person,” a boy with green skin whispers as the three-pointer looms over them. Katsuki steps forward, sighing wearily as he realises that with its height and jerky movements, he can’t get a good shot at it with a shuriken. He tucks it away, instead pulling out a knife and starting to scale the robot. It bucks wildly, arms flailing to swat him off, and he thinks to himself that this would be _infinitely_ easier with his quirk. Too bad he’s got a point to prove. The kids beneath him watch, speechless as he grapples his way to the robot’s shoulders and jams the knife in the gap between the robot’s two neck plates. It sputters almost immediately, and he yanks his knife out in time for the machine to crumple to the ground, allowing him to hop off it smoothly and keep walking ahead. “What the _fuck_ ,” a girl mutters from behind him. “No, really, what the _fuck_.”

By the time the exam is half-finished, he’s lost count of how many points he’s scored. The students have already finished off most of the robots, leaving the zero-pointers lumbering around aimlessly. Katsuki pouts when he looks up at the clock and realises that he hasn’t been able to use his nunchakus _once_. 

He’s contemplating whether he’ll get penalised for testing them on another student when he catches sight of a red-haired boy, completely unaware as he stands below a slowly malfunctioning one-pointer robot. 

“Oi, _dumbass_ ,” he yells. The red-head perks up at the sound, looking at him questioningly, and Katsuki snorts at how quick he is to respond to that name. “Fucking move, maybe?” he calls, gesturing one-handed at the teetering robot, and the other boy lets out a string of colourful swears before darting to the side just as the robot falls down where he was standing moments ago. “Thanks, man!” he calls, giving Katsuki a thumbs up, and the blonde resists the urge to throw a knife at his grinning face. Dude is _way_ too happy about his near-death experience. 

He’s trudging off aimlessly when he hears an excited yell from behind him, and realises the red-head is bounding towards him. 

“No. No, go the fuck away. Fuck you,” he says, walking faster, and the beaming boy speeds up to catch up to him. “I’m Kirishima!” he announces, sticking a hand out. Katsuki _hates_ him already. 

“Go fuck yourself, Kirishima,” he replies, trying to shake the smiling boy off his trail. He halts in his tracks, however, at the sight of the biggest robot he’s seen yet. 

“A zero-pointer,” Kirishima whispers, staring up at it in terror. Katsuki feels a crazed grin start to spread across his own face. “Fuck yes,” he breathes with what’s probably far too much excitement, if the concerned look Kirishima gives him is anything to go by. “Hey, man, we don’t get any points. We might as well just leave,” the red-head says nervously, eyeing the rapidly approaching robot. Katsuki shakes him off, pulling his nunchaku from his belt loop. _Finally_. Kirishima stops, staring at the nunchaku in disbelief. 

“Dude. _Dude._ I don’t know what your quirk is, but that is not gonna put a _dent_ in that robot,” he says, slightly hysterically. Katsuki turns to him with a wide smile. “Who said anything about quirks, Shitty-hair?”

Kirishima goes pale. 

Katsuki slips his gloves onto his hands, excitement making him clumsy, before pressing the button at the bottom of the metal tool and watching the bright blue pulse spread across it. 

_Fuck. Yes._

He starts to jog forward, lips twisted in a wide grin as he curls the nunchaku around his wrists to warm up. The robot, bless its soul, lumbers straight towards him, and he clambers up it to wrap the chain of the nunchaku against its exposed wiring at the joint of its finger, pulling and feeling the rush of electricity send a spasm down the robot’s entire body. The machine jerks violently, almost sending Katsuki flying, before starting to list sideways. To his utter shock (and slight disappointment), that hit is all it takes for the robot to crumple. For all its looming size, the zero-pointer really is easily felled. Well, Katsuki muses as he hops off it with a small pout and switches off his nunchaku, hooking it back into his belt loop, at least he got a chance to test the damn thing. Kirishima is staring at him, mouth hanging open and eyes wide, as Katsuki walks past him just in time for Present Mic’s grating announcement for the end of the exam. Well, he knows he got well over a hundred points for this exam, and he aced the written one too, so he’s not too bothered.

And the best thing about it, he thinks as he walks past all the dejected applicants, is that he didn’t have to use his quirk once. 

Apparently, his mother tells him the next day, Izuku got quite injured during the entrance exam. He snorts, but it’s more out of unsurprised bitterness than anything else, and his parents give him a disapproving look. He wants to be pissed, and in a way he _is_ , but more than anything his skin crawls at the thought of Izuku in bandages, all prone and motionless in a hospital, so he decides to go visit the loser anyway. He brings him a convenience store card with a picture of a cat on it, and neatly scrawls on the inside, ‘ _sorry you suck at following my advice_ ’, along with Izuku’s least favourite chocolate. When he gets there he sees that Izuku really is lying in his hospital bed, covered in bandages like Katsuki imagined. In fact, there’s not a single part of his body that isn’t bandaged. The dumbass isn’t conscious, though, so Katsuki isn’t given the satisfaction of laughing in his face. Instead, he obediently hugs Auntie Inko, tells her to get some sleep, and leaves the hospital feeling slightly less pissed than before at the knowledge that the nerd has at least suffered for his stupidity. 

He gets his acceptance letter a month later. 

He’s ranked first, _obviously_. He scores over 200 villain points, and even an extra 15 _rescue_ points, whatever the fuck those are. He assumes that he earned them from saving Shitty-hair's ass, and muses that maybe the dumbass wasn't completely useless after all. His parents cry (and he’s fairly certain Kenjirou-sensei tears up a little bit, too) and it’s fucking disgusting so he decides to go to Saki-sensei’s studio to practise while the other adults get their shit together. She laughs, hugs him tightly (which is only marginally less disgusting than the crying, but he allows it because he loves her) and they run through fouettes until they’re both dizzy and giggling. 

“So,” she breathes when they’re lying flat on their backs and staring up at the high ceiling of the studio. 

“You’re going to UA, huh.”

“Yeah.”

“When do you start?”

“Next month.”

“You know anyone else who’s going?”

“Deku applied.”

“You think he got in?”

Katsuki sighs, reaching up to block the light from his eyes.

“Mm. He was always gonna get in. He just needed to try.”

And he’s honest when he says it, but he just wishes that Izuku didn’t need a quirk to believe it too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you might notice that i modified the weapons a little!! instead of natasha's electroshock batons, i went for electroshock nunchakus - these shouldn't be too different in terms of functionality, but it was just a choice i thought would be fun :-)  
> 


	4. four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> and so their hero academia begins. the two boys talk, and katsuki thinks maybe it's time to stop looking at all might through his rose-coloured glasses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello hello hello! this is super late because i've been stuck on this chapter a while (and honestly am still not satisfied with it. at ALL.) but alas here it is!  
> i have a few notes to make before we begin!!  
> first of all, regarding the gender dysphoria - there will not be much of it. i will be having hints of it, but i'm having trouble and as someone who does not have any actual EXPERIENCE with it, i'd rather not portray it at all than misrepresent it. apologies if this bothers any of you :')  
> also, this will not be a deku-bashing fic!! so if you're looking for that i suggest you keep in mind that the two WILL be mending their relationship. this fic is not canon, and their issues are very different from that of canon too. katsuki's problem with izuku comes out of a place of care for him in this fic - he DOES very much care for him. i won't explain too much what their feelings for each other really are, because i don't want to in my notes, but i'd be happy to elaborate it in a comment if anyone is still confused.  
> that being said i'm not saying if you're not the biggest fan of deku, you should stop reading this fic, because it IS a katsuki-centric fic no matter what (and will consequently feature a large amount of katsuki yelling at him by default anyway)!!  
> i WILL however be calling into question a lot of other things: namely, all might's less than exemplary teaching (and also the school's concerning dependency on recovery girl's ability lmao???)

The first thing Katsuki sees when he walks into his new classroom at UA is a middle-aged man curled up in a yellow sleeping bag behind the teacher’s podium. The man, who Katsuki recognises moments later as an underground hero called Eraserhead, looks entirely unimpressed by the students chattering away. Moments later, the hero senses Katsuki watching him and he turns to stare back, holding his gaze flatly. Katsuki looks him straight in the eye as he stomps over to his desk and kicks his feet up on the desk, arching a brow in challenge. Eraserhead blinks, a slow acknowledgement of their mutual distaste for life as a whole, and they look away. 

Then seconds later, a boy with rectangular glasses and what looks like a sizable stick up his ass materialises to chastise him, arms flailing wildly as he begins to rant about the disrespect of putting one’s feet against the tables. Katsuki pins him with a blank stare, and a flat, “Is it against the fucking rules, Four-eyes?” that has the boy freezing in his tracks before turning on his heel to fuck off and reexamine the school rulebook, thoroughly chagrined.

“Oi, oi, it’s you!” someone is calling not even a split moment later, and Katsuki’s vision is filled with red. _Why are there so many of these fuckers_ , Katsuki bemoans to himself as Shitty-hair bounds up to him. 

“Go away.”

“I’m Kirishima Eijirou! We met at the entrance exam!” Kirishima says, sticking a hand out happily.

“Go _away_ , Shitty-hair.” 

At this, Kirishima’s expression somehow _brightens_ even more.

“So you _do_ remember me!” he exclaims, grin widening. “I knew it! What’s your name?”

“I don’t want to be your friend,” Katsuki deadpans. “Fuck off.”

“That’s a long name,” Kirishima says cheerfully in response, completely ignoring the murderous aura surrounding the blonde. He opens his mouth to speak again when Eraserhead finally wriggles into a sitting position next to the podium.

“If you’re just here to make friends, then leave now,” he drawls from the floor, making everyone (sans Katsuki) jump about a foot in the air.

“What the hell?” a girl with pink skin and black eyes says. “Who is that? Since when was he here?”

Katsuki muses absent-mindedly that if these losers are already this unattentive, the future of the hero industry really _is_ doomed. He’s more interested in the way Kirishima actually wilts at the pointed look the teacher gives him, finally dropping the hand he’d had outstretched to Katsuki and blushing in embarrassment. It makes the blonde feel somewhat guilty, for some reason, like he’s just kicked a puppy. Katsuki groans to himself, pushing his foot off the table to nudge the redhead in the side. “Name’s Bakugou,” he offers blandly. Kirishima perks all the way up again at this, completely forgetting his previous dejection. Across the room, Izuku is watching them hopefully, trying to make eye contact with Katsuki desperately while the latter ignores him.

 _Fuck that_.

The class is herded off to the grounds after Eraserhead (who has now introduced himself as Aizawa-sensei) throws gym uniforms at them and stalks out. 

Apparently he wants them to do an aptitude test. They’re missing the orientation assembly for it, Katsuki sighs. How unprofessional. But he throws the softball Aizawa-sensei offers him nonetheless, using his quirk and watching as it sails past the 700-metre mark easily. Behind him, he hears Kirishima make a confused noise. 

“What the hell? You have a fire quirk?!”

Katsuki rolls his shoulder, muttering back, “It’s an _explosion_ quirk, dickhead,” in correction as he walks back out of the circle. Kirishima follows him like a trailing puppy. “No way! Then what was that at the entrance exam?”

“What was what?”

“With the—the nunchakus!”

“Owning nunchakus isn’t a quirk, Shitty-hair.”

“But— _Huh?!_ ”

Half the class is watching them at this point, completely bemused. Izuku stares at them intensely.

“What nunchakus?” he interjects, and Kirishima turns to him with wild eyes. 

“Bakugou didn’t even use his goddamn _quirk_ , the dude took down a zero-pointer with a pair of _nunchakus_ , bro, it was insane! And the nunchakus were like—” he’s cut off by a sharp jab of Katsuki’s elbow to his ribs. “Shut up,” he mutters heatlessly, turning away and avoiding Izuku’s wide eyed gaze.

“K—Kacchan—”

“Shut _up_.”

The loser is looking at him with those stupid sad eyes already, as if he was expecting Katsuki to fucking _lie_ about it or something—like he hadn’t already _told_ him he was gonna do it quirkless. 

He’s saved from having to deal with the dumbass any longer by Kirishima, who decides to instead slowly say, “Did you just call him _Kacchan_?” which obviously sparks an entire new debate and ends with Izuku blushing like mad and half the class convinced that he and the nerd are dating. The implication makes Katsuki’s skin crawl but seeing the way the nerd flails is fucking hilarious, so he doesn’t say anything and instead stares at Aizawa-sensei stubbornly, his lack of denial only further spurring them.

So Izuku has a quirk. Huh. Katsuk’s not super surprised by it, considering that Izuku had already told Katsuki in middle school and the nerd’s never really been in the habit of lying. What _is_ surprising, though, is All Might’s poorly concealed figure watching from behind a building anxiously. After the test is revealed to be a ruse (seriously, this guy is _so predictable_ , why are his classmates so surprised?) he spots the number one hero dragging Izuku away behind the building to have a hushed conversation. 

Katsuki blinks. So Izuku has suddenly gotten real chummy with All Might, a man with a strength quirk, and has also gotten himself a similar strength quirk after spontaneously informing Katsuki of his alleged _new quirk_. 

_Interesting_. 

He’s tempted to follow them and eavesdrop on their conversation, but Kirishima tears his attention away with his insistent tugging on his arm.

“Dude. _Dude!_ What the heck? Your quirk’s insane, why wouldn’t you use it at the entrance exam? _Huh_?”

Katsuki shakes him off.

“I had a point to prove.”

Kirishima lets go of his arm to stare at him in confusion, examining him for a moment before a slow, awed grin overtakes his face. 

“That’s super manly!”

“Yeah, whatever.”

They meet their teachers over the span of the next few days, and Katsuki despairs as to _who the hell_ let Present Mic teach English. The guy teaches nothing but colloquialisms that make him sound like an underpaid DJ at a frat party. He itches to correct the asshole at moments, but instead chooses to finish his worksheets silently, lacking the energy to open _that_ can of worms. 

Then they have their first combat training class with All Might. The losers all turn up in their hero costumes, which are all terrifyingly badly designed. Izuku is in a full-body jumpsuit that would not look out of place in a furry convention, and Endeavour’s son is literally half-covered in fucking _ice_. What a fucking _waste_.

Katsuki’s own hero costume is simple, but at least he knows it fucking works. It’s a black ensemble, with a turtleneck and long, panelled sleeves that conceal a number of blades at the forearm gauntlet. There’s orange and dark green detailing, a cross at his chest and stripes at his elbows that he’d added begrudgingly after his mother had told him he looked like a wannabe FBI agent. His belt is also orange and green, adorned with a number of grenades filled with his own sweat and various other gases that are probably in varying levels of legality, as well as panelling that holds a further ten or so blades and his beloved Glock (that Kenjirou-sensei regrets gifting him to this day). His nunchakus hang from the side of his belt, positioned in a way that his hand brushes their trigger switch when it’s at his side. 

And then there’s his grenadier bracers. They’re fucking _huge_ , and annoyingly clunky if Katsuki’s being honest, especially in comparison to the rest of his suit, but they pack a punch and they’re fucking intimidating so he loves them. 

There’s one final addition to his hero costume. He hadn’t told his parents about it, or even Kenjirou-sensei. They’re wired bracelets at his wrists, sitting light and almost unnoticeable over his gloves. They’re electric again, and fucking extra, but he lived for the rush of destroying that zero-pointer at the exam and he couldn’t resist the temptation of taking it just one step further. Hopefully his parents aren’t too mad about it. 

His boots are sturdy but quiet as _fuck_ , and he enjoys watching Kirishima quite literally jump out of his skin when he walks up from behind him and says, “Your costume looks fucking stupid.”

“ _Dude!_ Where did you even come from?”

Kirishima’s not wearing a shirt. Of course he’s not. Katsuki ignores his question, and the redhead continues to ramble, staring at his costume in awe.

“Bro, your costume is so cool! Look at your grenade hands!”

“They’re bracers.”

“ _Grenade hands_ ,” he stresses, poking at the grenadier bracers and earning a sharp jab to the ribs for his efforts.

He’s teamed up with the rich kid from their first day, the one with engines in his legs. Apparently his name is Iida, but Katsuki takes to calling him Four-eyes, because it pisses him off. And lo and behold, they’re playing the villains against Izuku and the gravity girl. The aim is to protect a huge fake bomb, and they literally don’t have to do anything but wait for the other two to come and take it from them. 

Izuku tries to approach him again as they head into the grounds, wringing his hands nervously.

“Kacchan,” he attempts, and Katsuki bats his timid hand away without looking back.

“Piss off, Deku.”

“ _De_ —Kacchan, please don’t call me that.”

“Why? Am I wrong?”

Izuku tugs at his arm again.

“That’s not fair, Kacchan. It’s not fair, you can’t seriously be upset just because I made it into the hero course—”

Katsuki skids to a halt, spinning to stare at him with incredulity.

“You’re fucking kidding. You’re _joking_ , Izuku. Are you fucking serious right now?”

Izuku takes a step back, faltering at the wild look in his eyes, but Katsuki steps forward to bridge the gap again.

“When did I _ever_ tell you not to apply for heroics? When did I _ever_ tell you you couldn’t get in? _Huh_?!”

“I—”

“I’m not the one that said you couldn’t do it, Deku. _You_ were. _Fuck_ ,” he steps back to run a hand through his hair, huffing in disbelief. “You really don’t get it.”

His heart feels like it’s about to beat out of his chest with the mixture of anger and disappointment that swirls in it, and he can’t even deny anymore the hurt that cuts at his chest at the accusation in Izuku’s words. The idea that he would think that of him, would think him capable of feeling something like that toward him when Katsuki’s been the one trying to encourage him all along fucking _hurts_. Izuku’s face twists into one of desperation.

“Then _explain_ , Kacchan. Because I don’t _understand_.”

Katsuki’s expression hardens, and he backs away, feeling no sympathy for Izuku’s teary eyes.

“No. _No_ , fuck you. I don’t owe you shit. If you don’t understand, that’s on you. Figure your shit out yourself.”

He turns on his heel and storms away, eyes stinging sharply under his black mask, and decides that if all their conversations are going to end in him feeling this shitty, he’s gonna stop talking to the nerd altogether.

The exercise starts with the pairs at their opposite sides of the building. While Iida practises his villainous speeches, pacing the span of the room restlessly, Katsuki sits against the bomb, shrugging his bracers off to flex his hands experimentally. His chest is still aching with frustration from his previous argument, and there’s newfound energy thrumming through his body. 

Deciding that he’s wasting time sitting here, he pushes himself to his feet, brushing past a confused Iida briskly.

“I’ll take care of Deku,” he throws back over his shoulder. “Just watch the bomb.”

He ignores the other’s confused calls and steps into one of the corridors, using his quirk to propel himself high enough to latch onto the hold at one of the ceiling panels. The explosions are loud, _too_ loud in the silence of the building, but by the time anyone could come find him he’s already pulled himself up into the vent system and started to crawl his way through.

  
The vents are narrow, not enough that he’s cramped but enough that he’s glad he left his bracers behind. He’s crawled for about five minutes when he catches the sound of Izuku’s voice, muffled through the metal sheets, and freezes.

“—find the bomb. I’ll try and stop Kacchan and then meet you there, okay?” 

“Okay!” the gravity girl replies, and then there's the sound of more footsteps.

Katsuki waits silently for her to disappear, before he peeks through the grate and sees Izuku’s back as he walks away. Shifting his weight away from the panel, he lifts it up, tucking his fingers underneath it so that it doesn’t make any noise when he sets it down next to the now opened vent. Then, with all the grace of a boy who’s been through thirteen years of spite-fuelled ballet, he drops to the floor of the corridor in a soundless crouch. Raising the index finger of his left hand to his inner right wrist, he subtly flicks on the new electric bracelet as he rises, revelling in the pulse of blue that lights up across his knuckles.

Across the building, watching from a protected viewing platform, Eijirou’s heart drops at the sight of the familiar blue glow and the smirk on Bakugou’s face through the screen. 

“Oh, _fuck_. He’s gonna die,” he says faintly. “Midoriya’s gonna die.”

Ashido, Kaminari and Sero give him confused looks.

“He hasn’t even done anything yet, Kirishima,” Yaoyorozu says carefully, and he shakes his head mournfully.

“I’m gonna miss him.”

Katsuki doesn’t even give him a warning. He should feel guilty, honestly, but the only thing coursing through his veins currently is pure vindictive spite. 

“Hey, Deku,” he says. Izuku spins around, wide-eyed, and Katsuki punches him in the face.

The class watches in silence as Midoriya crumples to the floor. Bakugou shakes out his wrist, and the electric blue lines running down the back of his hand disappear. “Is… is he allowed to do that?” Hagakure asks hesitantly.

“Yes,” Aizawa-sensei says flatly. “Yes he is.”

“I can’t believe Bakugou just killed Midoriya,” Kirishima sighs.

Ochako is getting worried. There’s less than five minutes until the exercise ends and they automatically lose, and Midoriya still hasn’t sent her the signal. “Midoriya?” she ventures into the microphone attached to her costume yet again. “Are you there?”

She receives static in response. She frowns, chewing her lip thoughtfully. If they don’t get to the bomb now, they’re going to lose by default. Making up her mind, she switches off her microphone and turns around, heading back towards the main room. 

When she walks in, Midoriya’s unconscious figure is slumped against the wall, mere inches from the bomb they need to touch to win the fight. On one side, leaning against the wall, Iida sits beside him, arguing passionately with Bakugou, who sits against the bomb itself on Midoriya’s other side. 

“Oh no,” she whispers. They both turn to stare at her.

“Hey, she’s here,” Bakugou says casually. “You can do that weird villain speech you were practising.”

Iida’s expression lights up and he pushes himself to his feet, pointing a triumphant finger at her.

“I am the personification of villainy, and you, my dear hero, have failed to thwart us! It is better for you to yield now and embrace the evil within you!” he announces.

Ochako stares at him, and then at Bakugou, who’s snickering behind him quietly. “Oi, Four-eyes,” Bakugou wheezes. “Now do the laugh. Trust me, gravity girl, this is the best part.”

On cue, Iida throws his head back and lets out the most wicked, movie-villain-style cackle she’s ever heard, sending Bakugou into a fit of silent laughter so intense he turns red, falling to the ground against Midoriya’s limp body.

Then there’s rough crackling echoing through the room, and Aizawa-sensei’s staticky voice is calling over the speakers, “Time is now up. The villain team wins.”

  
  


Katsuki is walking to the locker room when he passes Recovery Girl’s office and hears All Might’s hushed voice again. He peers in, seeing the hero hunched over Izuku’s bed, the two exchanging urgent, whispered words. He catches fragments of the conversation, like _only natural to sustain damage_ and _stockpile quirk_.

Fucking _hell_.

He pushes the door open, slamming it shut behind him loudly to accent his entrance as All Might straightens hastily.

“O—oh, Young Bakugou, we were just discussing your recent fight—”

Katsuki raises a hand to silence him, pinning the two with an unimpressed glare.

“If you two dipshits are gonna try and keep your whole quirk exchange schtick a secret, maybe don’t have super suspicious conversations in _public places._ ”

“Oh my god you just called All Might a dipshit,” Izuku says in horror. 

“You know about One for All,” All Might says in equal horror.

Katsuki blinks at him. “The fuck is One for All? The name of your quirk or something? I don’t give a fuck, you two are obvious as hell so stop it. ‘S fucking _annoying._ ”

They blink at him in tandem, and he throws his hands up in exasperation.

“Did you seriously think you were being smooth? Deku being quirkless his entire life and then suddenly getting a quirk that’s literally almost _exactly_ the same as yours, after becoming suspiciously close with you? You two sneaking off to have little father-son lunch dates every day?”

All Might sputters and Izuku falls off his bed, mouth hanging open. Katsuki turns to the adult, rounding on him with a piercing stare.

“If you really feel the obligation to get Deku mixed up in your quirk bullshit, the least you could do is be _discreet_ about it. Because I don’t know shit but I have a feeling that villains would do a lot to get their hands on him if they knew. Get your shit together before you get him _killed_.”

All Might’s mouth snaps shut and his head bows, a guilty twinge in his eye. 

“Kacchan, that’s too harsh,” Izuku says defensively. “All Might isn’t—”

“ _All Might_ ,” Katsuki says venomously. “Seems to have convinced you that your new quirk makes you invincible. Well, _news flash_ , Deku, you’re not. You’re just as mortal as you were before, if me kicking your ass today without even using my _quirk_ was any indication. So stop making excuses for him, stop thinking that breaking your fucking _bones_ every other day is normal, and for _fuck’s sake_ , stop having private conversations in public.”

Fixing the hero with one final bitter glare, he turns on his heel and walks out of the infirmary, slamming the door shut behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and thus the widow bites make their appearance :^)  
> you may notice i've also made some modifications to katsuki's hero costume! the main changes are that his canon winter costume is now his regular costume in this fic, but his fic costume (very unfortunately) lacks the adorable explosions behind his head and there's a lot more gear hanging off his belt/concealed along the costume!! also, the weird black box shape near his mouth in canon is just a simple turtleneck-type thing,, altogether it's made a lot stealthier and lighter!!  
> also if you haven't joined my discord and would like to, please feel free to do so here: https://discord.gg/gxa2E5b  
> this discord is where i primarily plan updates/new fics (including updates for this one) so if you have anything you'd like to talk about or any suggestions for the fic, i'd love to hear them there!! we also just talk about katsuki a lot HAHAHA if that's your cup of tea i would 10/10 recommend!!  
> find me on tumblr!!  
> https://wonhaebunny.tumblr.com/


	5. five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> usj but make it vaguely more katsuki-centric

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what up i'm bunny i'm 18 and i never fuckin learned how to pace my writing
> 
> we are here with the USJ arc!!! i am so sorry this took so long!! it's been, like, one and half months??? i've been super busy now that university has started :( whoever told me law school is easy lied lol
> 
> this chapter is my longest one yet (6.1k, holy shit??) yet is still largely filler :')
> 
> please skip to the end notes to see warnings for this chapter!

Choosing a class representative is just about the most mundane thing Katsuki has done since setting foot in UA.

It’s a relatively smooth process, in which Iida wins with five votes, and Yaoyorozu is elected vice representative with four votes. 

Katsuki is utterly disgusted to realise that he himself is a runner-up with two votes despite his repeated expressal of exactly how much he _didn’t_ want the position. When he questions this, Izuku and Kirishima avert their eyes sheepishly, suddenly finding the ceiling very interesting. _Fuckers_.

He stews in his annoyance about this over lunch for all of ten minutes before the school alarms are going off and the entire school falls into chaos. Katsuki, who’s sitting on the roof eating lunch as he does his history homework, watches the entire thing with no small amount of amusement. 

It’s evident from his position that the mess is caused by some shitty journalists, so he doesn’t bother moving from his spot, continuing to eat slowly. It’s not like he’d be any safer in that stampede of students, anyway.

When he arrives at class, Kirishima is upon him instantly.

“Dude! Where the hell were you?” he demands. “The alarms went off, it was chaos!”

“I know,” Katsuki mutters, shrugging the red-head’s hand off his shoulders. “I saw.”

“What?! How?”

“None of your business,” he sighs, shoving his hand away yet again and moving to sit at his seat.

The red-head doesn’t look too hurt at his dismissal, but eyes him curiously for the entire class nonetheless.

Katsuki ignores him, staring straight ahead as Aizawa-sensei introduces some new training they’re going to be doing off-campus. 

The bus trip to the training site is loud as hell.

It seems the class doesn’t know how to _ever_ shut the fuck up. They flit from conversation topics in a matter of moments, the group of them gossiping like women. At some point when he’s started zoning out as he stares outside the window, he hears a mention of his name and he tunes in just in time to hear the boy with the electricity quirk snigger, “Bakugou would probably end up scaring the civilians away,”

Katsuki snaps his head up, raising his middle finger wordlessly with a flat glare. This makes his classmates laugh even harder, to his irritation.

“Seriously, though,” Black-eyes giggles. “Bakugou’s got this really creepy vibe to him, y’know? So quiet and scary. How’s he gonna rescue civilians like that?”

She earns a few scattered words of agreement, but Kirishima wraps an arm around Katsuki’s shoulder and laughs loudly, making him cringe away with a scowl.

“C’mon, guys, Bakugou’s a cool dude!” he says good-naturedly. “Besides, if we’re talking about Bakugou, shouldn’t we be asking Midoriya? They are, uh, pretty _close_.”

Katsuki decides he very much does _not_ like the suggestive tone Kirishima’s voice takes on the final word, and he likes its accompanying eyebrow wiggle even less. 

Izuku’s cheeks darken when their classmates turn to stare at him with teasing smirks, and he starts to stutter out a weak denial, flailing helplessly.

“You guys are _close,_ right, Bakugou?” Kirishima jeers, nudging Katsuki lightly. 

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Katsuki mutters evasively, just because it fills him with vindictive satisfaction to see the class in turn start to rib Izuku even more at his non-answer. The green-haired boy shoots Katsuki a baleful glare, which he promptly ignores in favour of staring out of the window pointedly.

The rest of the bus trip is filled with the class taunting a steadily reddening Izuku.

The USJ is huge. UA really doesn’t skimp out on spending, Katsuki will give them that. It’s large enough to fit an entire new school inside, with specialised zones of different conditions. 

The rescue hero Thirteen joins them. Aizawa walks up to Thirteen, and Katsuki strains his ears enough to hear his homeroom teacher faintly mutter, “Isn’t All Might meant to be here?” under his breath. In response, the other hero subtly holds up three fingers, and lightly responds, “All Might ran out of time for today, so I’ll be joining you.” 

_Ran out of time?_ Katsuki wonders if this has something to do with Izuku. Evidently, it does, given the way Izuku’s eyes widen knowingly at the conversation that he’s obviously also heard. _Whatever_. Aizawa simply nods imperceptibly, and Thirteen turns to greet the class before starting their obligatory motivational speech about saving people. Thirteen is a pretty cool hero, Katsuki admits. Their quirk is badass as hell—but they just don’t stop _talking_. 

He takes the time to look around the center, zoning out as he waits for them to finish. There’s an actual fucking _life-size_ mountain range, as well as an entire sector of destroyed buildings. There’s also an area of water that’s bigger than most lakes, waters evidently quite deep even from their distance. The budget for this place is _insane_ , considering how often it probably gets damaged and restored again. He’d actually be quite impressed by it all, if he wasn’t immediately hit with a feeling of unease so strong it feels like a punch to the gut. 

_Something is wrong_. 

He freezes, causing Kirishima, who’s hopping around as he listens to Thirteen, to bump into his shoulder with a yelp.

“Dude!” Kirishima cries, but Katsuki is too busy looking around the centre warily, eyes narrowed and body stiff with tension. “...Bakugou?” Kirishima asks, sounding a little more hesitant.

There’s a strong tug in Katsuki’s stomach that has his attention tunnelling to the empty centre of the dome, and he feels goosebumps raise on his arms.

“Sensei,” he finds himself saying sharply, cutting off Thirteen mid-sentence. The entire class turns to stare at him in a mixture of annoyance and confusion, but his eyes are trained to the empty spot on the training ground. “Something’s wrong,” he grits out. Aizawa-sensei follows his gaze to the vacant space. “What do you mean?” he asks intently, and Katsuki clenches his jaw.

“Fucking—I don’t know. _Something_.”

The class all stare at the area in silence for a moment. “Maybe you’re just on edge, Bakug—” Kirishima begins, before his jaw drops open at the wisps of purple that begin to materialise in the very space Katsuki has been watching, twisting to form what looks like a huge vortex.

There’s a moment of stunned stillness where the group watches the purple mass expand, an outstretched hand emerging from its midst. The hand is followed by a black-clad body that is covered in fucking _severed hands_. The body belongs to an electric-blue haired man with another severed hand covering his face. He’s flanked by dozens of other people that step out of the vortex, and at his left there’s a hulking giant man (or creature, Katsuki honestly doesn’t fucking know) with dark blue skin, a gold-tipped beak and the top part of his head missing to expose his brain. He’s fucking _huge_ , easily three times the size of All Might. The group, at least a hundred to two hundred people, spreads out over the center of the training ground. 

“Whoa,” Kirishima mutters next to him, sounding slightly terrified. “This is a pretty intense drill.”

 _This is not a goddamn drill_ , Katsuki says internally, something oddly familiar inside him twisting at the look in the intruders’ eyes that’s visible even from his distance. _Those are..._

“Those are villains,” Aizawa-sensei says grimly, as if confirming his fear. “This isn’t a drill. Everyone behind me now.”

The students all shuffle behind him immediately, suddenly looking a lot more alert. 

“Thirteen, get the students out of here. I’ll handle this,” he instructs, hair starting to rise as he snaps his goggles over his face briskly.

Katsuki watches with a lump forming in his stomach as Aizawa-sensei sprints over towards the huge group of villains. He’s not stupid enough to think his teacher weak, but Aizawa-sensei is still an underground hero, and his quirk and fighting style are poorly matched here. There’s adrenaline coursing through Katsuki’s veins as his homeroom teacher wraps his scarves around three villains at once and sends them flying into each other, and he wants nothing more than to join him and _fight_. But Thirteen is already turning around and ushering them towards the entrance discreetly.

It’s futile. Moments later, another purple portal is opening in front of the doorway and blocking their exit. 

A man in a suit steps out of it, shrouded in more purple wispy shit that’s so dense Katsuki can’t see any of him. _He’s the one making the portals_ , Katsuki realises.

“Nice to meet you,” he announces weirdly formally. “We are the League of Villains.”

And then, as if Thirteen’s damn speech wasn’t enough, the asshole starts monologuing.

 _Fucking hell_. 

The bottom line, apparently, is that they’re here to kill All Might.

Now, Katsuki hasn’t been the biggest fan of All Might as of late. However, like _hell_ is he gonna let the asshole die, because then Izuku would probably _also_ die because he’d have no one to teach him how to use his stupid quirk.

Damn it.

He contemplates attacking the asshole now, but before he can make any impulsive decisions, Kirishima is making one for him. The idiot is surging forward with his arms hardened into jagged rock and an excited grin on his face, and Katsuki groans internally, following him with no small amount of reluctance.

Katsuki sends dual explosions into the villain’s face, easily hard enough to knock out a normal person. But something inside him is telling him it’s useless. And lo and behold, when the smoke clears the man is still standing, misty form scattering and reforming unnaturally. The bulk of the mist seems to float around one mass, and Katsuki catches sight of the glint of metal as the mist shifts back into place. 

“Oh dear,” the villain rumbles in his unsettlingly polite tone. “That’s dangerous.”

Thirteen cries out from behind them, instructing them to get back, but the villain is already drawing closer to a frozen Katsuki and Kirishima.

“My job,” he sighs lowly, “Is to scatter you all and torture you to death.”

And before Katsuki can even blink, they’re all enveloped in purple.

 _Yeah_ , in hindsight, maybe they shouldn’t have attacked the villain. 

_Oops_.

There’s a tug in the bottom of his stomach, and he only has time to reach over and latch onto Kirishima’s bicep before they’re being sucked into the vortex and hurled into nothingness.

Moments later, he’s falling in a heap onto hard cement, surrounded by dust and grey. It’s warmer and darker; some kind of room. He realises with a jolt as he stares outside the window that they’re in one of the destroyed buildings he’d glimpsed earlier on the training field.

By the time Kirishima sits up to rub at the back of his head with a groan, Katsuki is already on his feet and staring at the eight villains that surround them in the tiny room.

“Shitty-hair,” he mutters. “Get up.”

“In a minute, man,” the red-head whines, eyes still half-closed. Katsuki wants to dropkick the idiot out of the goddamn _window_.

“Kirishima,” he grits out, dangerously low this time. “Get up before I fucking kill you.”

The other pushes to his feet with another groan, promptly making eye contact with the villain standing right in front of him, and blanches.

“Oh shit,” he says, and then the villain punches him in the face. 

Katsuki turns to the villains facing him and they charge him at once. By the time he’s knocked two of them out and thrown the third out of the window, Kirishima has finally got the drop on the one that hit him.

“I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you,” the villain spits at Kirishima, barely dodging a blow.

“C’mon, man, you already punched me in the face! Isn’t that enough?” the red-head wails as he flails out of the way of a kick, hardened arms denting the wall upon impact.

“You deserved that punch for being an idiot,” Katsuki says absent-mindedly as he fires an explosion in the face of the fourth villain, who crumples instantly. Kirishima whines in the background, and the villain snorts in agreement.

“ _Dude_!” he cries. “Are you seriously teaming up on me with a _villain_ right now?”

“Yes,” Katsuki deadpans, punching the fifth guy in the face and throwing the final two into the wall with an explosion.

It’s kind of pathetic that it’s taking Kirishima this long to kick _one_ guy’s ass, but Katsuki takes pity on him and doesn’t mention it. To be fair, the villain’s quirk seems to allow him to absorb blows, skin shifting and sinking on impact and rendering Kirishima pretty much useless. He’s only just started to slow down, quirk weakening as the student wears him out. Finally, the villain falters and Kirishima gets a solid hit in, sending the man sprawling, and he doesn’t get back up. 

Kirishima straightens to grin at him widely, eyes widening at the unconscious bodies surrounding Katsuki.

“You took out so many of them, what the hell?” he breathes in awe. Katsuki, who’s too busy trying to feel out the invisible presence creeping up behind him, doesn’t respond. When the person is right next to his shoulder, he reaches backward and grabs them, spinning to slam his elbow into their face with an audible _crack_. Just like that, the invisibility quirk wears off to reveal a weird chameleon-looking guy, slumped in his grasp. 

“These villains are too weak,” Katsuki mutters to himself. “They’re distracting us.”

Kirishima is just gaping at him, muttering something about crazy reaction times.

Katsuki sighs and heads out to the window. They’re quite far off from the entrance, and he can see a few of their classmates scattered around in different places. 

In the centre of the ground, Aizawa-sensei is fighting the blue-haired hands guy. They grapple for a moment, and then the villain wraps his fingers around the teacher’s elbow, and Katsuki stares in dread as the hero's skin begins to _crumble_ , visible cracks spider-webbing up the skin even from Katsuki’s distance.

“Fuck,” he breathes. Kirishima joins him at the window just in time to watch as the huge dark blue creature grabs Aizawa-sensei by the back of the head and slams him face-first into the concrete hard enough that it cracks. Katsuki and Kirishima flinch at the sight, and the sickening sound of the impact that echoes around the dome. Blood begins to pool under Aizawa-sensei’s body slowly, spreading across the cracked floor. Then the creature hunches over their limp teacher and takes his wrist, snapping it with one hand and earning a strangled cry that makes Katsuki feel vaguely ill.

He’s jumping out of the window moments later, bile bitter at the back of his throat, and he registers Kirishima next to him. They land on the floor two stories down and start to sprint towards the fight. Aizawa-sensei is unmoving, now, and Katsuki prays to any deity in existence that he’s not _dead_.

The creature is lumbering towards three tiny figures that float in the water sector. _Izuku_ , Katsuki realises as he nears them, his heart dropping into his stomach. _Izuku_ ’s in the water. The blue-haired villain is striding up to Izuku and the two other students with him, and Katsuki is so damn _close_. The villain is reaching a hand forward towards the frog-girl’s face, and Izuku is frozen in terror, staring at the approaching hand with wide eyes. All Katsuki can see in his head is the way Aizawa-sensei’s arm had disintegrated under that hand, and from the look on Izuku’s face he’s seeing the same thing.

Just as the villain’s palm is closing over her face, Katsuki is bursting forward with an explosion, knocking the hand away and shoving the girl and Izuku the other way a split-second before the villain’s fingers make contact.

He lands in a roll, but when he’s pushing to his feet the hand villain is already staring at him with narrowed eyes. 

“You’re annoying,” he whispers, scratching at his cheek with a dry, grating sound that sets Katsuki’s teeth on edge. Then he raises a hand to point directly at Katsuki. 

“Noumu. Kill him.”

The hulking blue creature straightens, turning to face Katsuki, and he swallows thickly.

 _Fuck_.

It steps towards him slowly, each second it draws nearer making Katsuki shrink back slightly. It’s even bigger up close, beady eyes glinting with something dull that makes Katsuki confirm that it’s really not so human after all. 

He lets loose an explosion that leaves absolutely _no_ mark on the thing’s rock-hard muscled skin, and he doesn’t have to try to know his knife will be useless. There’s eerie silence as the Noumu approaches him, his blows bouncing off of it like they’re nothing. Even the wired electric bracelets don’t even earn a _flinch_.

 _Fuuuuck_.

It’s reaching toward him with a hand the size of his body, and he’s backing away but not fast enough. Just as the fingers wrap around him, his eyes squeezing shut of their own accord, there’s a resounding crash from the entrance, and their gazes all snap to the explosion of dust and smoke that billows out from the doorway. And then All Might is walking out of the haze, and the Noumu’s grip loosens.

The sheer relief that floods Katsuki at the sight of the hero is enough to make him want to cry, his entire body sagging.

“It’s fine, now,” All Might says lowly, voice echoing around the building. “I am here.”

His smile is more of a grimace than anything else, but Katsuki feels actual tears form at the corners of his eyes at the familiar quote.

Within moments, All Might has sent four villains flying, Aizawa-sensei nestled in his arms gently. And then Katsuki’s body is jerking and he finds himself on the floor next to an equally-dazed Izuku, a distance away from where the Noumu now stands with an outstretched empty hand. He blinks, swaying unsteadily at the change of position. All Might stands in front of them with set shoulders.

How had All Might moved him, Aizawa-sensei, and three other students faster than they could even blink?

 _His speed_ … Katsuki marvels with silent awe, suddenly feeling like a kid watching television again. _He’s really no joke_. They’re _saved_.

“Everyone, go to the entrance,” All Might says quietly. “I’m leaving Aizawa to you.”

Katsuki is already hauling Aizawa-sensei’s body up with the other two students, but he pauses when he realises Izuku is still staring at All Might with wide eyes.  
“All Might,” the green-haired boy breathes. “You can’t, your time limit.”

It’s quiet enough that no one else seems to pick up on it except Katsuki, but All Might turns to flash Izuku a reassuring smile. “It’s fine!” he booms, grinning as he flashes Izuku a peace sign.

It’s a testament to how shaken Katsuki is by the whole situation that he doesn’t roll his eyes at the dorky gesture.

Izuku swallows, before nodding once and reluctantly shifting to help Katsuki heave up Aizawa-sensei. 

They awkwardly carry their teacher’s unconscious body back to the entrance, but Katsuki and Izuku can’t help from glancing back at the fight behind them every few moments. All Might’s blows seem to have absolutely no impact on the Noumu, the creature taking blow after blow unflinchingly. Finally, after what feels like forever, All Might wraps his arms around the Noumu’s midsection from behind and fucking _suplexes_ it into the ground, sending dust and rubble flying in a huge explosion. The group all relax slightly, more tension bleeding from their bodies.

“We’re safe,” the frog-girl croaks in relief. Katsuki just hefts Aizawa-sensei higher, tightening his grip.

“We need to get out of here first,” he grunts. “If they take us hostage we’ll do more harm than help.”

The other three nod, but then Izuku glances back furtively and freezes, the blood draining from his face instantly. Katsuki turns around to see All Might bent backwards, the Noumu’s lower half planted in the ground and its upper half protruding from a portal under All Might to grip his abdomen hard enough that blood starts to seep through the fabric of his shirt. All Might twists to pry the hands away, but they simply dig deeper, and the hero’s smile twists into a grimace.

“Asui,” Izuku mumbles quietly. “Can you take my place here for a second?”

The frog-girl nods, looking slightly confused as she takes over where he’s been holding up half of Aizawa-sensei’s limp body.

But then Izuku is sprinting back, straight towards the fight like an _idiot_. 

Katsuki curses out loud, dropping Aizawa-sensei and following after him with a groan.

Something bad’s gonna happen, he just _knows it—_

And as if to prove his point, Izuku lunges forward and a portal materialises right in front of his face, his hand sinking into it in slow-motion. _Fuck, fuck, fuck_.

Using his explosions to propel himself the rest of the way, Katsuki slams himself into the warp gate villain, reaching for where he’s almost entirely sure he should hit a— _bingo_. His hand closes around a metal cylinder, the one he had seen when he and Kirishima had attacked the villain earlier. He detonates an explosion straight into the metal, slamming it into the ground, and the warp gate around the Noumu flickers.

“Kacchan,” Izuku breathes from behind him. Oh, Katsuki is _so_ gonna kick his suicidal ass when this is over.

Moments later, ice is creeping up towards them, wrapping itself around the Noumu’s body quickly and signalling the arrival of Endeavour’s brat. All Might takes advantage of the distraction and pries himself from the Noumu’s hands, jumping backwards and clutching his bleeding abdomen. Steam is starting to rise from his body lightly, and Katsuki wonders absently if it’s a side effect of his quirk. _Weird._ He’s cut out of his musing by the stirring of the portal villain underneath him, and he sets off another explosion callously, eyes narrowed.

“Try to move again and I’ll fucking _kill_ you,” he spits poisonously, earning a weak look of disapproval from Izuku.

The blue haired villain, on the other hand, perks up at this, turning to watch Katsuki with curious eyes.

“Interesting,” he hums, hand raising to absent-mindedly scratch at his jaw. “Very interesting. That’s quite the threat.”

Katsuki’s lips curl into a snarl and he detonates a particularly large explosion against the villain’s metal body out of spite.

“You wanna fucking test it, dickhead?” he hisses, making the blue-haired villain’s eyes light up.

“Shi… garaki…” the portal guy rasps from under Katsuki’s grasp. 

“Quiet, Kurogiri,” the other villain snaps, before turning his attention back to Katsuki. 

“You… very interesting. You’re very interesting, indeed.”

Katsuki growls, pressing the metal cylinder further into the rubble menacingly.

“The fuck do you fuckers want, huh? You got a death wish?”

Shigaraki shrugs his shoulders lightly, rolling them out and rubbing at the flaky skin on his neck.

“It’s our job to rid the world of you so-called _heroes_. Making the rules, pretending you’re _better_ than everyone else,” his voice takes on a passionate, almost petulant tone at the end, scratching growing agitated. Kurogiri’s portals are still wavering, flickering lightly as Katsuki sets off another detonation against the metal.

“So you’re like Stain...” he mutters under his breath without thinking. But he’s evidently not as quiet as he’d thought, because Shigaraki and Kurogiri rapidly turn to stare at him intently.

“You… you follow Stain?” Shigaraki breathes. “You… a hero student…”

Katsuki feels vaguely uncomfortable at the fervent light that comes into Shigaraki’s eyes as he ambles closer, and he raises another hand threateningly. 

“I don’t follow _shit,_ ” he corrects harshly. “You’re just saying the same shit as him, sounding like fucking broken tape recorders.”

“So you’ve met him,” Shigaraki says. Katsuki doesn’t answer, suddenly feeling like he’s made a mistake in mentioning the other. Is Stain fucking _famous_ , or something? Katsuki had thought he was just some random guy he’d met in a conbini.

“What did you think of him?” Shigaraki asks after a moment’s pause. Katsuki scowls, eyes narrowing. 

Stain was… interesting, Katsuki admits. He’d only talked to him once, and from the looks of it, Stain is a villain, but if Katsuki is honest with himself he kind of understands the guy’s perspective. He mulls over the question cautiously for a moment.

All Might is still hanging back, watching the exchange with a mixture of wariness and curiosity. 

“That’s none of your fucking business,” he spits finally, hoping his lack of vitriol isn’t too obvious. It might fall short, though, because Shigaraki hums, muttering under his breath in a way that’s morbidly similar to Izuku.

“I changed my mind. I want you alive,” he says finally, eyeing Katsuki with something so intense that a shiver runs down his spine. “Very interesting, indeed.”

Katsuki, feeling greatly unsettled, is about to spit back something sharp when he’s cut off by the sound of cracking behind him.

“Bakugou!” Kirishima calls, and he spins to see the ice encasing the Noumu begin to splinter away. 

The half of the creature that’s covered in ice breaks away, leaving the Noumu with one arm and one leg.

 _Good_ , Katsuki thinks harshly.

But then the ice is falling away and muscle fibres are shooting outward, snaking down the Noumu’s body to form two new limbs. Katsuki’s stomach drops.

_What._

Shigaraki chuckles from behind Katsuki.

“You didn’t think that was his _only_ quirk, did you? This is his super-regeneration.”

He says it with almost childlike excitement, eyes bright.

All Might, still clutching his bleeding side, straightens slowly. The white steam that had been rising off his body before is thicker now, rising faster.

“All Might,” Izuku whispers urgently. “you’re out of time.”

Katsuki looks between the two of them in confusion, wondering what the fuck he keeps hearing about a damn _time limit_.

“Noumu,” Shigaraki drawls lowly. “Kill All Might.”

And then the Noumu is stalking towards the hunched hero and Katsuki has no time to think about any time limit.

The first punch throws back Katsuki and Shigaraki, the force of it creating a whirlwind of dust. The two meet fists in the middle, and they all stand, watching in awe as All Might and the Noumu face off, trading blows evenly. Shigaraki’s smirk is gone now, and he watches as the two move so fast their arms blur. Through the flying rubble, Katsuki can see a droplet of blood drip from the corner of All Might’s bared teeth, signature smile stretched across his face even as his eyes narrow in pain.

Then the Noumu is sent flying backwards, and the two of them leap into the air, All Might sending the creature slamming down into the ground so hard a crater forms around it.

And he’s _still fucking smiling_. God, All Might is an annoying idiot, but he’s _so damn cool_. Katsuki can feel adrenaline start to course through his veins again just watching the fight.

“Hey, villain,” All Might calls gruffly. “Have you ever heard these words? Go beyond,”

He sprints towards the sluggish Noumu, eyes glinting as his hand clenches into a fist and starts to smoke. “Plus ultra!”

When his fist makes impact with the Noumu’s stomach, the force of the air behind the punch sends everyone skidding backwards, and there’s an explosion of yellow heat, a storm of smoke and rubble filling Katsuki’s sight. When it clears enough for him to see again, all that’s visible is a giant hole in the outer roof of the dome, and through that a rapidly receding dot in the distance.

There’s still a storm whirling around them, and Katsuki blinks, mouth hanging open slightly.

_Did he… how…_

All Might just punched fast enough to nullify the Noumu’s shock absorption, he realises, head suddenly feeling like it’s full of cotton. What the _hell_.

“I feel like I’m in a comic book,” Izuku mumbles next to him. Katsuki, for once, agrees with him.

“Bro…” Kirishima whispers, nudging him. “I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen you smile.”

Katsuki snaps around to stare at him, hand rising to touch his face quickly. _Shit_ , he _is_ smiling, he realises. And it’s that stupid smile he had as a kid, too, the one he used to wear when watching All Might on the television. The _fanboy look_ , his mother dubbed it fondly. All sappy and big and childish. Coughing, he tries to school his expression into a scowl, but the smile just won’t go away.

In the end, he gives up and just turns away from the grinning red-head and slaps a hand over his own mouth, only to come face-to-face with Izuku, who’s giving him a knowing look.

“Piss off, Deku,” he mutters grumpily, earning a laugh from Kirishima.

All Might’s figure is still crouched in his previous position, shrouded in slowly clearing smoke.

“Man, that would’ve taken five hits in my prime,” the panting hero says lightly, slowly straightening to hit a fist against his chest with a pained smile. “But it took me 300.”

The white steam is coming off him in billowing puffs now, and blood drips from the corner of his mouth steadily.

“You…” Shigaraki rasps from where they’ve all but forgotten about him. “You cheated.”

All Might turns to face him with dark eyes, smile fading slightly.

“You said you’d kill me,” he calls out, fists clenching at his sides. “Come and get me if you can.”

The gathered students stare at the face-off in awe.

“We should go,” Kirishima announces finally, still smiling widely in excitement. “There’s no need for us to fight.”

Izuku, on the other hand, is watching All Might with an apprehensive expression.

“A bluff?” he breathes so quietly Katsuki barely catches it. “He has no time…”

Shigaraki starts to scratch his neck again, growing more agitated in the face of All Might’s impassive taunt. 

“If only I had Noumu…” the villain mutters roughly, the noise of his nails on dry skin making Katsuki cringe.

Kurogiri leans down to whisper something in the blue-haired man’s ears, seeming to soothe him slightly.

“Yeah,” Shigaraki murmurs. “Yeah, yeah, you’re right. We can still kill him.”

He starts to run towards All Might, Kurogiri following close behind him.

But All Might doesn’t move. Katsuki watches with narrowed eyes as the hero’s hand twitches into a fist, shakily moving upwards far too slowly.

 _He can’t move_ , Katsuki realises belatedly. _He’s out of time, he can’t use his quirk any longer_.

All Might just stands helplessly as the two villains draw near him. 

And then there’s a rustle from next to Katsuki, and goddamn _Izuku is gone again_.

“Fucking—you _idiot_!” Katsuki roars, tearing after the dumbass instinctively. For good measure, too, because, predictably, Shigaraki’s hand is emerging from the portal again, right towards Izuku’s damn face. Maybe Katsuki should just let Izuku fuck up, for once. Maybe then the fucker will _learn_ something, he muses. But alas, he finds himself following anyway because he knows Auntie Inko would cry if Izuku got himself killed.

Izuku is moving too fast, propelled by One for All, and Katsuki makes the split-second decision in mid-air to abandon his explosions and reach for one of the knives tucked in his belt.

There’s a moment when time seems to slow down, and Katsuki sees the way Izuku’s expression shifts to fear as he registers the hand approaching his face, and then the way it shifts to confusion as he sees Katsuki follow behind. 

And then they’re dropping, Katsuki yanking Izuku to his chest and out of the way, and there’s the hum of a knife, followed by a sharp, slick sound, and Shigaraki is _howling_.

They roll to a stop, and Katsuki glances at the knife he’s still gripping tightly to see a sheen of blood dripping off of it, and a few metres away on the floor, a—

“Oh my _god,_ ” Kirishima mutters from where the object has rolled to his feet, looking suddenly ill. “Is that a finger.”

It is indeed a finger, Katsuki realises. He’s just amputated what seems to be Shigaraki’s thumb. How _lovely_.

Shigaraki hunches over, clutching his bleeding hand to his chest as he screams.

Kurogiri turns to him, eyes falling upon the still-dripping knife in his hand.

“You…” he begins quietly. 

And then the doors are bursting open, and police officers flood in, guns aimed at the villains and shouting orders.

“ _Kurogiri!_ ” Shigaraki wails, and the portal villain spares one last lingering look at Katsuki before a portal is wrapping around the two men and they disappear into nothing.

“ _Oh my god_ ,” Kirishima whispers again hoarsely, still staring at the severed thumb on the floor. Katsuki sighs, oddly unbothered by the gruesome sight, and wipes the bloodied knife on a patch of nearby grass before tucking it back into his belt.

Izuku is looking at him in horror, and Endeavour’s son looks mildly disturbed. Of course, all of his emotions seem to be expressed mildly so Katsuki isn’t quite sure what to make of _that_.

Kirishima sucks in a shaky breath, before turning around and throwing up into a nearby bush.

The steam emanating from All Might’s body is so thick it obscures him entirely, now, his figure shrouded in white. Midoriya collapses where he stands, knees buckling under him weakly. 

“Midoriya!” Kirishima lurches towards him, still looking slightly ill. But Izuku’s head snaps up at the call of his name, and his gaze flickers momentarily to All Might behind him, expression shifting to one of panic.

“D—Don’t come—” he squeaks, pleas going unheard. All Might’s figure is still indiscernible behind the white smoke, but he seems to be hunching over, his silhouette looking smaller than ever. Izuku is flailing wildly, struggling to stop the overzealous red-head from coming over for whatever reason.

Katsuki sighs, reaching out to grab Kirishima’s wrist.

“Oi,” he grunts. “Go and help them get Aizawa-sensei up the stairs.”

Kirishima blinks at him once, before sparing a final glance at Izuku and reluctantly turning to head toward the stairs. 

“Th—thank you, Kacchan,” Izuku wheezes, legs purple and limp and very much broken.

“I appreciate your help, Young Bakugou, you can go with Kirishima—” All Might begins from behind the smoke, voice strangely urgent, and Katsuki cuts him off by walking straight towards him, earning a panicked yelp.

“Young Bakugou—!” All Might cries. 

Katsuki hadn’t been imagining it. All Might really is smaller, cheeks gaunt and body frail, thinner and shorter somehow. He decides not to question it for now.

“When did you hit your time limit?” Katsuki asks, ignoring Izuku and All Might’s weak protests and excuses. They freeze, and All Might seems to sag.

“You know,” he says hollowly. Katsuki gives him a flat stare. “As much as you two idiots like to _think_ you’re being subtle, you’re really not.”

All Might grimaces sheepishly, and Izuku blushes.

“I was already at my limit before I came here,” All Might finally responds. “I only have three hours a day, and I spent it all in a villain attack this morning.”

Katsuki frowns at him, and the hero cowers away from the look, staring at the ground.

Then a cement wall shoots up behind them, blocking All Might’s withered form from everyone’s view, and a police officer emerges from behind it.

“Toshinori,” he says in greeting. All Might bows his head lightly, looking very vulnerable without all the muscle and the smile.

“Naomasa-san.”

“I’m looking for clues regarding the villains’ identities. Did you recognise any of them or find anything we could use as a lead?” he asks briskly. 

“I have a thumb,” Katsuki cuts in stupidly. The police officer turns to stare at him blankly, and Katsuki flushes under the look.

“I mean—not my thumb. One of the villain’s thumbs. Shigaraki.”

He gestures at the severed digit on the floor, and the police officer stoops to pick it up with a gloved hand.

“How did this happen?” he asks seriously, inspecting the finger closely before dropping it into a plastic bag.

Katsuki swallows. _Play dumb, play dumb_.

“It fell off.”

 _Not_ that _dumb._

At this, both adults and Izuku give him an incredulous look, and he winces.

“I mean. Uhh.”

The police officer eyes Katsuki’s bloodied hand skeptically, and Katsuki tucks it behind his back hastily. This does nothing to conceal the equally-bloodstained knife still hanging off his belt.

“My hand slipped,” he says lamely. "With the knife."

_Dear god, Katsuki is going to get himself arrested for amputating someone's thumb—_

The man stares at him for a moment longer, before finally nodding.

“Thank you,” he says, and turns on his heel, disappearing on the other side of the cement wall.

Katsuki deflates, huffing out a weak sigh. That is, until All Might turns to him with poorly-hidden amusement on his face and says, “Naomasa-san’s quirk allows him to detect when people are lying to him.”

_Fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: canon-typical violence! there is also amputation (but no worries it's not katsuki or any of the kids/heroes)  
> -
> 
> i hope you're all coping well in the midst of the pandemic! please remember to stay home, stay hydrated, and wash your hands!!


	6. six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there is so much happening in this chapter that i don't even know how to summarise it. have the sports festival arc, i guess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! i am back (after two months lol oops)!!! i'm super sorry this took so long, uni has me absolutely deAD. funny how i said last chapter was long at 6.1k words and then i turn up now and throw a 13.3k word chapter out LMAOOOO,,, this chapter is mostly filler and i really am not feeling great about it so i'm sorry if it's not up to anyone's standards :')
> 
> can't think of many warnings for this one but um,,, tw for very, VERY mild dysphoria at the beginning? i'm so sorry if i miss anything, please let me know and i'll add it in!! this is, for the most part, a very lighthearted chapter :D

_Dark._

_The air is stale, bitingly cold against her skin._

_In the distance, the faint chime of piano keys, vibrations thrumming through old linoleum floors._

_Natalia is following the music, walking–no,_ floating– _across dusty tile. The vibrations grow stronger beneath her, the patter of the ivory keys growing louder as she feels the tremors beneath her feet._

_She weaves between polished wooden pillars and yellowing lamps that line towering walls. The room is still so cold, the taste of dust and grit sitting heavy and familiar on her tongue._

_The piano sits in the corner of an open-floored room, bracketed by an ornate antique archway of an entrance._

_In the center of the floor, dancers. They arrange in a line, backs rod-straight and hands poised delicately like porcelain dolls as they twist through fouettés uniformly. Neatly coiled buns are matted to shining foreheads, chins raised in a mimicry of ease that belies sweat gleaming through worn fabric. Their turns are sharp, forms graceful and crisp._

_But not enough._

_(She knows, more than anyone. It’s never enough.)_

_The piano stops._

_“Again,” the trainer barks from where he is watching with hard eyes._

_The dancers don’t falter, dipping into another set with their fatigue betrayed only by the slightest furrow between their brows. Natalia draws closer, presses up against the glass. She understands, more than anyone, the exhaustion that lines the stiff curve of their spines, the barely perceptible tremor of their artfully curled fingers._

_“You’ll break them,” she murmurs to the woman that has drawn up behind her. They watch in silence for a moment._

_“Only the breakable ones,” she responds finally, in that tone that Natalia knows is accompanied by an elegant smile._

_In the corner, watching the dancers, sit a row of trembling girls in pressed uniforms. The oldest of them couldn’t be more than ten years old. Apprehension lines their soft faces, and there is an underlying bone-deep resignation in their eyes that has Natalia’s chest aching._

_The woman behind her raises a hand to her shoulder. She feels small under her touch, fragile and_ exposed _._

_“You’re made of marble,” she says lightly._

_There’s a smugness to the words that makes Natalia’s stomach turn._

_And then the fingers against her shoulder are melting away, the dancers dissolving into red, seeping through the floorboards and into nothingness. Gunshots echo through the room, and the kneeling children crumple one-by-one, heads slumping forward and crimson soaking through crisp white dresses. There’s the press of an arm around Natalia’s neck, yanking tightly from behind and she suddenly can’t_ breathe _. Her head starts to spin, lungs burning for oxygen as the room begins to crumble down around her. She scrabbles weakly at the elbow that’s clamped against her throat, watching through blurred vision as the children are buried beneath rubble and dust, and her vision fills with red._

Katsuki wakes with a choked gasp. He pushes up to a sitting position, fingers already curled around the hilt of his knife as he sucks in a deep, shuddering breath. His chest is tight, hands trembling where they’re clenched against the bedsheets, and there’s the faintest smell of burning fabric. 

His entire body is shaking slightly, and for the briefest of moments, he feels _wrong._ It’s the same feeling he has when he looks in the mirror sometimes, seeing himself bigger than he feels, bigger than what he _should_ be. It’s never been like this, though. In the past, it’s been disorienting—an inconvenience at most. It’s been his shoulders looking weirdly squared, his chest feeling a little too light, gait on the edge of feeling too heavy. But it’s never been _this_ , this hypersensitivity where even the brush of his sheets feels rough against _too-calloused hands_ , heart beating wildly against a hard and flat chest that doesn’t feel like his own. His hair is matted against his forehead, dampened with sweat, and the knife is sharp against the pads of his fingers. 

What the _fuck_.

Katsuki lifts his head to look at himself in the mirror propped against his wall, and meets glistening red eyes that seem far too haunted to be his own. A shaking hand raises to brush through hair that feels short, coarse on his skin.

He doesn’t do his ballet stretches that morning. The mere prospect of it sends his stomach churning so violently he finds himself hunched over the toilet bowl for the next hour.

The class is _way_ too excited for a group of teenagers that were attacked by actual villains less than a day ago. The moment he walks in, Kirishima is perking up in his seat like an eager puppy, making Katsuki scowl on instinct and push his earphones deeper into his ears. This does absolutely nothing to deter the redhead, who follows him to his seat and fearlessly plucks an earphone out and pops it into his own curiously, falling silent to listen in for a moment. Katsuki lets him, if only because he’s still jittery and slightly shaken from the morning, and he has absolutely no energy to bat away the idiot’s hands.

He doesn’t even know what he’s fucking _listening_ to, for fuck’s sake. It’s some stupid Chinese podcast about the reason behind the country’s failing hero industry or whatever. He stopped listening long ago, opting to just let the earphones deter anyone from attempting to talk to him. 

It fails, evidently, because moments later Kirishima is turning to him with wide eyes.

“ _Dude_ , what language is this? Is this _Chinese_?” he asks, nonplussed. “Can you understand this?”

Katsuki grunts noncommittally, feeling the beginning of a migraine coming on at the volume inside the classroom. He really doesn’t really have the energy to get into explaining his baffling fluency in like, fifteen different languages. He doesn’t even fully understand it himself, half the time. 

A scrunched up paper ball sails across the room and into Katsuki’s suddenly outstretched hand, cutting off Kirishima’s rambling line of questions.

“Dude,” Kaminari breathes from where he’s just thrown it. “What the hell are your reflexes? You didn’t even see it!”

Katsuki glares at him, groaning internally at the way Kirishima takes this turn of conversation to conveniently jump into the story of their fight at the USJ.

“Yeah, yeah, villains are scary and whatnot, can we talk about the fact that Bakugou straight up amputated that one villain’s finger?” Jirou drawls from where she’s draped over her seat lazily.

“It was his thumb,” Katsuki corrects listlessly, kneading at his throbbing temple. 

“Dude, is that seriously the only correction you’re gonna make? You _cut off a villain’s finger_!”

Kaminari cries in disbelief, arms flailing.

“Thumb,” Katsuki corrects again. The scandalised expression Kaminari gives him has Jirou snickering, and even Kirishima looks a little amused (although he also looks slightly sick at the memory).

“Bakugou, my dude, you’re fucking terrifying sometimes,” Sero observes from where he’s perched on Ashido’s desk. 

Ashido sits up suddenly eyeing him curiously.

“Speaking of the finger thing—”

“ _Thumb_.”

“Okay, _Jesus_ , speaking of the _thumb_ thing, where the hell did you get that knife? What, do you just carry knives around in your hero costume?”

Katsuki gives her a flat look.

“No.”

She (and a few others) looks vaguely relieved at his response, until he continues on to say, “I have them no matter what I’m wearing.”

Their expressions drop back into apprehension, and Kirishima starts to edge away from him subtly, eyeing his body quickly. Katsuki turns to give him a sharp grin that has him whimpering slightly under his breath, arms hardening tentatively on instinct.

“Your use of the word ‘them’ implies that you carry more than one,” Jirou notes mildly, looking a mix of amused and troubled at the conversation.

“I said what I fucking said, Earlobes,” Katsuki mutters, and Kirishima physically blanches away from him momentarily, before shoving a wide smile onto his face to mask the sheer terror in his eyes.

Katsuki really isn’t sure why the dumbass is so intent on being his friend when he’s obviously terrified of him, but he doesn’t comment on it. He guesses it’s kind of funny, anyway.

He’s saved the effort of having to continue the stupid conversation by the entrance of Aizawa-sensei, who’s covered in so much bandages he looks like he belongs in a morgue. 

Upon his arrival, pretty much the entire class is sent into uproar, making Katsuki’s migraine flare up and sending him sinking down into his seat with a silent groan. Aizawa-sensei, thankfully, shuts them up relatively quickly. 

He announces the impending sports festival, and the volume in the room escalates all over again. Katsuki _hates_ this class. He’s given little consolation at the fact that their homeroom teacher looks just as weary about the noise as he is. The two of them share a long-suffering look of acknowledgement, and Katsuki quietly watches the man silently slink back into his sleeping bag amongst the chaos. He’s equal parts jealous and annoyed.

Izuku tries to approach him after class. He’s touching the tips of his index fingers together awkwardly, looking at Katsuki all shy and demure through nervous eyes.

Katsuki groans loudly at the sight, and his slowly receding migraine starts to return.

“What the fuck is this, a shoujo manga?” he asks irritably. “Stand up straight, dumbass. And lose the whole cutesy act.”

Izuku blushes down to his neck, choking on nothing.

“I—I’m not acting _cute_ , Kacchan—!” he cries, drawing the attention of a few lingering classmates that give the duo some very suggestive looks.

Kaminari wolf-whistles, making Izuku trip over his own feet as he flails. Katsuki just raises an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his chest and watching him impassively.

“Is there something you fuckin’ need, Deku?”

Izuku frowns slightly at the nickname.

“Please don’t call me that, Kacchan, we’ve been over this.”

Katsuki leans back against his desk, sensing that this is going to be a long ordeal.

“I’ll stop calling you Deku when you stop being a Deku,” he says simply.

Izuku’s frown deepens, but he shakes his head moments later, swallowing thickly before bowing at the waist, a full ninety-degrees.

“I wanted to thank you for saving me yesterday, Kacchan!” he announces loudly, drawing even more attention to the spectacle.

Katsuki eyes the idiot’s bowing figure dubiously, wondering what the fuck he’s meant to do with this. All it needs is a nice box of chocolates and it’d be a lovely Valentine’s day confession, what with how dramatic the nerd is being.

“I didn’t save you,” he says numbly, wanting to go to sleep.

Izuku straightens slightly, staring at him in confusion.

“Yes, you… did?” he utters weakly.

“You did, actually,” Kaminari offers helpfully from where he’s watching the conversation with a smug grin. “It was super heroic, too. You totally moved without even realising it. That’s the power of love, I guess.”

Izuku turns an interesting shade of scarlet, and Katsuki stares at Kaminari flatly for a long few seconds, before turning back to the green-haired boy who’s still half-bowing in front of him cluelessly.

“Fine,” he admits wearily. “I saved you. But don’t misunderstand, Deku.” he pins the other with a sharp look that has him shrinking back slightly. “The only reason I did it was because Auntie would be sad if I let your stupid ass get yourself killed so quickly. We’re _not_ friends, and I don’t give a fuck what you do anymore. Don’t expect me to be there next time you make a stupid decision.”

He brushes past Izuku and a confused-looking Kaminari to go take a nap on the rooftop.

  
  
  


By the end of the day, the entrance to their classroom is completely filled by students from the other first-year classes, obviously here to check them out following the news of the sports festival. Katsuki sighs quietly at the sight. His migraine had _finally_ receded following a short but much-needed nap on the rooftop during lunch, but the group of clamouring teenagers has it threatening to return with a vengeance. 

“Oi, oi, what do you guys even want from us?!” the short purple diaper boy with the grape quirk cries, voice all nasally and whining. 

Katsuki huffs another tired sigh. He knows the kid is supposed to be in his homegroup and all, but he just has the most _punchable_ face.

“They’re scouting out the competition, dumbass. We’re the ones that survived the villains’ attack,” he mutters anyway, slowly packing his textbooks into his bag and moving towards the door slowly. “They’re probably just checking us out before the sports festival.”

He pauses in front of the group, watching them impassively.

“There’s no point doing that now. You might as well just stay out of my way.” 

Katsuki is met with offended murmuring that he promptly ignores with a flat look.

The crowd stands quietly for a moment, unsure of what to do with him, before a distinct figure shoves themself to the front.

He’s tall, all lanky with faded purple hair that sticks upward like a troll doll. At his arrival, the crowd falls silent.

“I came to see what the famous 1-A was like, but you seem pretty arrogant,” he drawls, stopping in front of Katsuki with an unimpressed stare. His eyes are flat and tired, but there’s a certain sharpness to his gaze. “Are all the hero course students like this?”

Katsuki’s class begins to protest weakly, but the boy cuts them off with a sigh. He blinks slowly, hand reaching up to rub at the back of his neck as his gaze meets Katsuki’s again.

“There are quite a few people who enrolled in general studies or other courses because they couldn’t make it into the hero course. The school has given us a chance.”

His gaze travels over their class slowly.

“Depending on the results of the sports festival, UA will consider our transfer into the hero course. And it seems they may also transfer people out.”

The temperature in the room seems to drop at the thinly veiled threat, and the purple-haired boy’s eyes return to meet Katsuki’s.

“Scouting out the competition?” he huffs humorlessly, eyes glinting. “This is a declaration of war.”

Katsuki sees a few of his own classmates shrink back at the words, looking more than a little intimidated. He just blinks at the boy, utterly unimpressed at the speech. The guy is interesting, he’ll give him that much. Definitely has a lot more drive than most of the losers in Katsuki’s class. But, then again, the losers are in his class for a reason. Whatever this guy’s issues are, it’s not Katsuki’s concern.

He’s mulling over the declaration placidly when there’s another figure pushing to the front of the crowd. This one is _loud_ , and Katsuki’s temple starts to twinge again. He groans imperceptibly, almost instantly losing all interest in the conversation and turning to push through the crowd and get away from the noise. The guy continues to yell at his back indignantly, and the purple-haired boy watches him go silently. Katsuki is stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, Bakugou, what the hell? It’s your fault they’re hating on us, you can’t just leave!” Kirishima demands nervously. Katsuki turns to meet his gaze indifferently. “It’s not my problem if they weren’t strong enough to make the hero course,” he says simply, voice echoing through the suddenly very silent corridor. “It doesn’t matter to me as long as I win.”

He feels Izuku’s eyes on him from behind, burning at his back intensely.

This time when he turns to exit, the crowd of wide-eyed students parts for him easily. 

  
  


They train for the festival ceaselessly for the next few weeks. Most of his training is done with Kirishima and occasionally the rest of the redhead’s crew. At one point, even Iida approaches Katsuki to spar. That ends abruptly, though, when they realise that the two of them really aren’t compatible to fight together. Iida is flat on his back and winded in all of thirty seconds, and the sight is so pathetic that Katsuki can’t even bring himself to feel victorious. The guy is weirdly chill when Katsuki isn’t trying to piss him off, though, so they start running together in the mornings. He’s not the worst running partner, if Katsuki is being honest. He can stay quiet for the most part, and his quirk makes him a good challenge. Between him and Kirishima (and his own personal training), Katsuki is kept pretty busy.

Before they know it, the sports festival has arrived.

His mom sends him off with a sharp pat on the back and a thinly veiled threat to _not kill anyone_.

By morning, they’re all dressed in their sports uniforms and ready to go, the waiting room silent but for the occasional hushed conversation. Katsuki sits in a corner and drinks his banana milk quietly with a straw. Kirishima, Sero, Kaminari and Ashido sit with him, the four of them discussing possible tactics for the festival. He doesn’t really have the heart to tell them that all their ideas are kind of shitty, what with the nervous edge to their laughter, so he doesn’t contribute to the conversation. 

The class all hushes unanimously when Endeavour’s son, Todoroki, approaches Izuku impassively.

He stops when they’re mere inches apart, and stares at the awkwardly blinking green-haired boy.

“Midoriya Izuku,” he says flatly. “Looking at things objectively, I think I’m stronger than you.” his words echo through the pin-drop silent waiting room. He pauses, eyes narrowing slightly. “But All Might has his eye on you, doesn’t he?”

Izuku blanches at the words, almost toppling off his bench. He starts to stutter out a weak denial but Todoroki raises a hand wordlessly. “I’m not trying to pry,” he says simply. “But I’m going to beat you.”

No one talks for a few moments. Izuku looks a mixture of confused and terrified. Kirishima is just pushing up from his seat to laugh awkwardly and break up the tension when Izuku straightens slowly, expression smoothing out.

“Objectively,” he begins quietly, making Kirishima stop in his tracks. “Maybe you are stronger. But… Everyone is working so hard to win today. So I’ll be going for it with everything I have, too.”

He clenches his fists passionately, eyes shining with determination and excitement.

Todoroki stares at him indifferently, and they both just stand in silence for a moment, chest-to-chest.

No one talks.

And then Katsuki takes a long, loud drag of his banana milk through his straw, the sound cutting through the silence.

Everyone turns to him and he blinks.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” he mutters to himself, grip tightening instinctively on the drink carton at the glare Todoroki gifts him with. It’s really not his fault the two of them are dramatic as hell, honestly.

The tension in the room seems to drop at the words, and everyone relaxes slightly. Ashido and Kaminari have started to snicker at him, but Todoroki is still glaring. He’s saved having to open _that_ particular can of worms by the arrival of Midnight, who appears in the doorway to tell them it’s time to head into the arena.

“I would’ve thought you’d be more offended that Todoroki was challenging Midoriya and not you!” Kirishima says curiously as they line up to exit the waiting room. Katsuki shrugs, dropping his empty carton into the bin by the doorway.

“I’m gonna beat them both anyway so it doesn’t really matter to me,” he says bluntly, ignoring the way Todoroki’s narrowed eyes snap onto him at the words. “I just prefer to do it without all the fancy monologues.”

The temperature in the room drops again, and Kirishima stares between the two of them with an open mouth, suddenly looking very much like he regrets having asked in the first place. Katsuki turns to look at Todoroki guilelessly.

“Ever considered going into theatre?” he asks coolly. Kaminari chokes on the water he’s drinking, and Kirishima winces at the dangerous edge that’s creeping into Todoroki’s glare.

“You—” the heterochromatic boy begins quietly, but he’s cut off by the sound of the buzzer, and Katsuki gifts him with a final smirk before he heads off into the arena.

When they enter the stadium, it’s to the sound of deafening cheers. There’s gotta be at least ten thousand spectators surrounding them, all waving banners and cameras excitedly.

In the background, Present Mic introduces their class eagerly, spouting something about surviving villain attacks and being experienced.

Moments later, he’s announcing class 1-B, and then 1-C. When the purple-haired boy from before stalks onto the stadium, he’s glaring straight at Katsuki. It’s a little unnerving, really, so Katsuki just blinks back blankly. The guy stares at him unrelentingly for the remainder of the introductions, and it’s so weird that Katsuki almost misses Midnight announcing the pledge.

She’s wearing her same stupid 18+ rated hero costume that has all the students drooling. Katsuki really doesn’t understand the point of inviting an 18+ hero to teach at a school full of very much _underaged_ teenagers, but that’s neither here nor there, he supposes.

“Quiet, everyone,” she calls out, and a hush falls over the stadium. “Representing the students is Bakugou Katsuki, from class 1-A!”

He finally tears his gaze away from the purple-haired student, taking this signal to trudge up the stairs with his hands tucked into his pockets. 

When he reaches the microphone, he regards the silent crowd flatly for a long moment. Finally, he leans toward the stand.

“I pledge,” he drawls, hands still in his pockets nonchalantly, “to win.”

He hears the simultaneous facepalm of pretty much all of his homegroup behind him. Before the students can start throwing rocks or some shit, he turns to face them directly.

“For anyone who thinks they can beat me?” he says lowly into the microphone, voice carrying across the silent stadium easily. His gaze finds that of the purple-haired boy, who’s still glaring at him with his arms crossed across his chest. 

“I welcome you to try.”

There’s a moment of tense quiet before the crowd is roaring again.

“What a passionate challenge issued from the hero course’s number one!” Present Mic screeches from the commentary box over all the noise. Katsuki holds the purple-haired student’s gaze for a moment longer before he steps off the stage again and takes his place next to a very exasperated Kirishima.

“ _Dude_ ,” he whines quietly, shifting slightly in his spot at the downright venomous glares the students from the other classes are sending in 1-A’s direction, “can you not go, like _five minutes_ without pissing someone off?”

Katsuki shrugs impassively, baring his teeth at a general studies girl who’s scowling at him darkly. She recoils instinctively, scowl deepening. Kirishima smacks his arm lightly, giving him a weak glare.

“ _Bakugou_ !” he hisses. “What did I _just_ say?”

  
  


The first round is an obstacle course. The introduction lasts all of two minutes, with Midnight stepping up to the centre of the stadium with a downright lewd smirk.

“The rules for this challenge?” she calls silkily. “There are no rules. As long as you stay on the course, it doesn’t matter what you do.”

And with a crack of her whip, she’s stepping off the field and the race begins.

There’s a stampede almost instantly, the students all clamouring to get out of the narrow entranceway. As students fall over each other to get away from the blockage, Present Mic yammers on in the background, narrating the entire thing happily. 

Katsuki lets himself get shoved around for a bit, considering the situation slowly. He can’t really use his explosions right now, not when he’s surrounded by fucking hundreds of students. He doesn’t have any of his normal gear on him, too, because of the rules that prohibit use of support gear by the hero students. The only thing he has is the singular knife that he snuck in through a strap under his shirt, and if he uses it he’ll probably get disqualified.

Ahead of them, some of the zero-pointer robots from the entrance exam are lumbering forward towards the students at the front.

He’s trying to decide what to do when the choice is made for him.

There’s a loud crackling noise and the robots are freezing, ice spider-webbing its way from the ground and up their legs to root them to their places.

Todoroki is running forward a moment later, ducking under their unmoving forms and leaving the rest of the students behind.

 _Dramatic bitch_.

The others have stopped in their struggle to watch him in disbelief with their own legs frozen to the ground, and Katsuki takes advantage of the opening to duck between them and to the front before scaling the nearest robot the same way he had in the entrance exam. By the time he’s reached the top, the students behind him have broken out of their stupors and started forward to follow Todoroki’s path. Said student turns back to glance at them, before calling out a cold, “I wouldn’t recommend that. The robots aren’t too stable right now.”

And as if to accentuate his point, one of the robots that a student is running under suddenly collapses, the ice splintering with a _crack_ as it buries them in a manner of seconds. Katsuki freezes, staring at the spot in numb disbelief. 

_Did Todoroki just straight up murder a student?_

To his relief, moments later the ice is breaking apart with another loud noise and Kirishima’s hardened form emerges from under it. The tension bleeds slowly from Katsuki’s body, and Kirishima looks up to nod at him slightly. Katsuki huffs quietly and turns to dart from his position atop his slowly crumbling robot to the shoulder of another one. He jumps from robot to robot, ignoring the cries of the students that are straggling behind. When he pushes off the last robot, tucking into a roll and landing smoothly, Todoroki is barely 20 feet ahead of him. Behind them, students follow hot on their trail, most of them from 1-A.

Present Mic is still narrating the entire race eagerly, voice echoing around the stadium loud enough that it’s edging on being irritating.

The next obstacle is a straight up chasm, with the race track suddenly dropping off into nothingness. There are pillars of varying sizes rising from the gap, connected by a series of what look like tightropes. The chasm is fucking _huge_ , and Todoroki is already gliding over the tightropes with ice. Katsuki is hot on his tail, sprinting across swaying ropes with an ease that makes him suddenly very grateful for the time he spent at the gym with Saki-sensei working on balancing. It’s still fucking _terrifying_ nonetheless, and his stomach is churning the entire time. 

Todoroki is still faster than him, though, and by the time they’ve both passed the obstacle the gap between them is larger again. 

Behind them, a girl with huge pink hair and round goggles has a fancy-ass grappling hook tool and what look like actual _hover boots_ , and she clears the entire chasm in under a minute flat. 

Katsuki doesn’t know whether he should be impressed or intimidated at the half-crazed glint to her eyes.

(He settles on impressed. He doesn’t know who, but she reminds him of someone he knows–no, someone he knew.)

The next obstacle is what looks like an empty field of patchy, uneven brown dirt. But Todoroki stops short momentarily as he nears it, and Katsuki realises why when he draws closer. There are certain areas that have been clearly dug up and refilled, and Present Mic announces over the speakers that the final obstacle is a _minefield_.

Katsuki feels a smirk creep onto his face at the revelation, and his gaze snaps to Todoroki, who’s slowly picking his way through the field. He’s still a decent way ahead of Katsuki, but he’s moving _slowly_ , and Katsuki is in his element here.

He’s moving onto the field in seconds, darting between the raised dirt mounds without a second glance. Todoroki is strong, but years of training have made Katsuki light on his feet. He’s caught up to the other’s slow-moving figure in a matter of moments, passing him by easily. 

Todoroki watches him as he tears ahead, in a mixture of anger and disbelief.

He’s actually almost completely sure he’s secured first place when he hears Present Mic’s voice raise by about three octaves, as he screeches, “And 1-A’s Midoriya Izuku seems to be… collecting landmines?!”

Katsuki actually groans out loud at this, reluctantly glancing back over his shoulder to see the idiot hacking at the ground with a metal slab, collecting the mines into a compacted pile. And as Izuku braces himself with the metal and straight up throws himself onto the heap, Katsuki can only watch as he’s sent sailing over the entire field with a deafening _boom_.

There’s utter silence as all the students stop in their tracks to watch him soar above their heads dramatically.

It’s all fun and great and very majestic until the momentum is lost and the dumbass is sent hurtling back towards the ground, dangerously fast. Katsuki can see the exact moment the situation registers in Izuku’s eyes, as if he’s finally remembering about the existence of gravity.

“What the fuck...” Katsuki says to himself, now standing stock-still in the middle of the field with his hands on his hips as he watches the determination in the idiot’s eyes give way to sheer terror. For god’s sake, he doesn’t even know what Izuku _thought_ would happen.

Todoroki, who’d paused to watch Izuku in absolute incredulity for a moment, falters at the realisation that Izuku is headed straight for him. The dumbass is hurtling down towards the other student, and his expression lights up moments before impact with a look of excitement that tells Katsuki he’s just had an extremely stupid idea. Katsuki can only watch as Izuku flips around, spinning the piece of metal over his head and using motherfucking Todoroki’s shoulder as a _launching pad_ to propel himself forward. The resulting explosions from the metal’s impact with the ground sends Todoroki’s position up in smoke, while Izuku goes flying once again, this time over Katsuki and past the minefield. When Katsuki shakes himself out of his reverie, Todoroki has already started running, passing him and clearing the minefield. Katsuki sighs, starting to run again and grumbling under his breath all the while.

By the time he gets back to the stadium, Todoroki and Izuku are already there. The former is standing in a corner, staring impassively at the openly crying latter.

Above them, the crowd is hysterical, cheers growing in volume at Katsuki’s entrance. 

“I did it!” Izuku is wheezing to himself under his breath, entire body coated in dust and soot. “I told them ‘I am here’, just like All Might told me to!”

Katsuki freezes in his tracks, head turning slowly to face the main viewing box with sharp eyes.

All Might stands behind the thick glass, thin figure grinning proudly at Izuku’s battered figure from above.

Suddenly, the determination that had clouded Izuku’s eyes during the course makes a lot more sense. Katsuki feels his glare turn deadly at the implication.

As if sensing the eyes on him, All Might pauses, before he turns and makes direct eye contact with a very unimpressed Katsuki.

At the expression the student is giving him, he actually _flinches_ , blood draining from his face visibly even with the distance between them.

He’s still glaring at the cowering hero when a hand claps down on his shoulder firmly, making him whip around to face a beaming Kirishima.

“Dude! That was so cool, you came in third! And that final minefield, too, you were so _fast_ ! What are you, a cat? That was _insane_!”

Katsuki lets him ramble a bit longer as he glares down a grimacing All Might until the pro finally gives in and looks away first, scratching at the back of his neck awkwardly.

After the remaining students return to the main stadium area, Midnight comes back onto the stage to announce the next event.

It’s a _cavalry battle_. When she mentions teams, students have already started gravitating towards each other. 

That is, until she announces the point system. 

The second the screen displays Izuku’s face next to a glaring ‘ten million points’, everyone is looking away from the green-haired boy sheepishly, forming their own teams. Katsuki doesn’t know if he feels pity or vindictiveness at the absolute terror that overtakes the boy’s expression at his sudden isolation.

“Bakugou!” Kirishima, Sero, Ashido and Kaminari wail at once, along with about ten other people. He stares at them flatly, as they beg to be teamed up with him. Do they not realise that the maximum number of members in a team is four? They wouldn’t be able to be in a team together even if Katsuki _wanted_ to.

Besides, he’s already eyeing up someone else: the pink-haired girl with the grappling hook. She’s crouched over an opened toolbox, muttering to herself in a corner alone as the people around her give her a wary berth. She looks fucking weird, if he’s being honest. So of course, he beelines straight towards her.

“You four losers team up with each other,” he throws over his shoulder at the idiots clamoring for his attention, ignoring their confused cries as he leaves.

“Oi, grappling hook girl,” he calls out as he approaches the student hunched in the corner fiddling with some strange metal contraption. It takes her a few moments to glance up, before she briefly meets his look with distant eyes. 

“Me?” she asks slightly breathlessly, attention already focused back on the toolbox.

He squats down next to her and watches her tinker absent-mindedly.

“You’re the one with the grappling hook, right?”

At this, she actually looks up at him with shining, half-crazed eyes.

“My babies! Did you like them?”

Her… babies? Huh.

“They’re not bad,” he says noncommittally, watching as she tosses a small metal cube in the air, which seems to actually _grow_ , unfurling to roughly the size of a tennis ball before shrinking back down when it lands back in her open palm.

“You make them?” he asks, still staring at the cube apprehensively. She nods eagerly, before promptly launching into a spiel that could easily rival Izuku’s. Her hands never stop moving as she does so, tightening contraptions or rearranging tools in her kit. After a minute or so of this, he cuts her off with a hasty, “Yeah, okay, I’d love to hear about this later but we have less than five minutes to form teams for this next round. Wanna join mine or not?”

She pauses at this, before her eyes zero in on his name plastered across the scoreboard in the sky.

“You’re ranked third!” she breathes. “Yes, yes, my babies will get lots of exposure with you!” 

Her eyes glaze over slightly at the thought, before she turns to face Katsuki with a wide grin. “I’m in! Name’s Hatsume Mei!”

“Great,” he says, not bothering to introduce himself. His eyes are glued to another piece of gear in her inventory. “I’ve got a plan.”

They team up with the guy from Katsuki’s class with the multiple limbs, Shouji. He seems flustered but eager to be on Katsuki’s team, and his eyes harden with excitement when the two explain the plan to him. The initial setup is slightly odd, with Katsuki perched on Shouji’s shoulders, and Hatsume behind him, hidden inside a weird cocoon-like shape that the masked student makes with his other arms. Strapped to Katsuki’s feet are a pair of jetpack boots that Hatsume happily handed to him.

When the strategy time ends and the teams line up, the group is given more than a few apprehensive stares. 

“Just two members?” a girl from another class mutters as she blinks at Katsuki and Shouji. “That’s risky…”

Inside her little flesh cocoon, Hatsume snickers quietly. 

The moment Midnight cracks her whip to signify the beginning of the battle, all teams are sprinting straight towards Izuku, who’s teamed up with Uraraka and Tokoyami. Their team falters at the sudden assault, intimidation clear on their faces.

In the meantime, Katsuki gives a brief tap to Shouji’s shoulder and fires up the jetpack boots. There’s a low, barely-audible hum for a brief moment, the air heating up around them.

And then he’s sent _flying_ up off Shouji’s shoulders, so fast and unsteady that he almost careens straight into the audience. The force of it sends his gut lurching, nausea tickling at the back of his throat. The audience’s screeches grow in volume as he nears them jerkily, but he rights himself just in time, slowly testing out the controls in the little remote Hatsume had handed him. By the time he’s finally stabilised, slowing to a gentle drift in the centre of the arena, all the teams are gazing up at him in terror. 

A slow smile creeps onto Katsuki’s face, and the stadium falls into complete silence. He has enough time to smirk at Todoroki before he’s hurtling back down towards him at breakneck speeds, fuelled by the jetpack boots. The heterochromic boy reels back, eyes flickering with shock as he shoots a hasty wall of ice towards Katsuki that the blonde roughly dodges. 

From the commentary box, there’s a loud gasp from Present Mic.

“Oh my _goodness!_ It seems Bakugou’s team is—” 

The hero is cut off by a sharp _slap_ , and then Aizawa-sensei is grumbling a faint, “Don’t give away students’ strategies, _idiot_.”

Present Mic apologises sheepishly, whining under his breath. Katsuki huffs a sigh, feeling silently grateful for Aizawa-sensei. It seems the two teachers have caught onto his team’s plan, but he’d really rather _not_ have it announced to the entire stadium prematurely.

He steels himself, before swooping down at Todoroki’s team again. He dodges the next wall of ice with a noticeably smaller amount of difficulty as he adjusts to the feeling of the hoverboots. The other teams have gone back to pursuing a very harassed-looking Izuku, who’s flailing at all the attacks.

On Katsuki’s third swoop, he has just enough time to see the glint of a silver grappling hook shoot out from the crevice of Hatsume’s hiding spot, catching cleanly onto the headband around Izuku’s forehead and yanking it away into Hatsume’s momentarily outstretched hand. She retreats back into the shadows of Shouji’s arm barricade immediately. The entire thing happens so quickly it’s barely visible to the naked eye, with Izuku’s headband being there one moment and gone the next. The green-haired boy jerks at the loss, hand raising to his now empty forehead in confusion.

All the attacking teams who had been focused on Izuku’s headband are left standing stupidly, before they whip around to find out who amongst them has stolen it. Izuku himself looks something like a fish out of water, hand plastered to his bare forehead in utter bewilderment. 

After realising that he’s of no more use to them, the majority of the teams turn to charge towards Todoroki, who’s still trying to deter Katsuki’s swooping advances. 

Katsuki, on the other hand, takes advantage of the sudden diversion to swoop towards Kirishima’s team instead. The redhead screeches at the sudden attack, arms flailing upward to shield himself.

“ _Dude_ !” he wails indignantly. “I thought we were _friends_!”

Sero, Ashido and Kaminari all echo the sentiment with similar looks of betrayal, and Katsuki yanks away an unsuspecting Sero’s headband easily, securing their team another 175 points.

“You know what they say,” he grins, baring his teeth at the group viciously. “Keep your friends close,”

He lets them finish the sentence themselves as he draws back into the air, turning to see a commotion on the other side of the field where both Todoroki and Iida have mysteriously lost their headbands. Katsuki glances back at Shouji, who gives him a brief nod, and from the cracks of her little cavern space, Hatsume winks at him and holds up the two missing headbands smugly.

By now, they’ve already secured more than enough points to come in an easy first place; they had from the moment they’d taken Izuku’s headband. But for the sake of maintaining the charade, Katsuki spends the rest of the battle half-heartedly swooping other teams and snatching a few more headbands. When the buzzer sounds for the end of the battle, the scoreboard is projected just in time for all the students to turn and see ‘Team Bakugou’ shoot straight to first place, followed by a shining, ‘10,001,105 points’.

Like clockwork, every single head on the field turns to Katsuki slowly, just in time to see him help a grinning Hatsume down from Shouji’s shoulders, headbands clutched in her fist triumphantly.

There’s utter silence for _one, two, three—_

The stadium explodes into noise.

Kirishima looks a mixture of betrayed and awed, and Izuku just looks awed. Todoroki, on the other hand, looks like he wants nothing more than to strangle Katsuki with his bare hands. He’s visibly fuming, and shrugs off Yaoyorozu’s concerned hand roughly.

Katsuki turns to Shouji, offering a brief nod of acknowledgement. The guy did his job, and he respects that.

“Nice,” he says simply, and Shouji nods back. It’s an easy exchange. 

Hatsume, however, is still gripping the arm Katsuki had held out to help her down, one hand groping his chest a little too tightly to be socially acceptable. He’s kind of weirded out, until she grins at him, and he realises she can feel the strap of the knife under his uniform.

“Oh,” she snickers. “Someone’s a little rule-breaker.” He wrenches his arm away quickly, glancing around to check if anyone’s noticed the interaction, but she pats the same part of his chest placatingly.

“Not to worry, Dynamite, I won’t tell a soul.” 

She’s looking at him with coy eyes, and he groans internally.

“What do you want.”

The girl’s eyes gleam hungrily.

“Well... I watched your fight with Greenie over there, and you had some neat little bracelets that I’d love to take a look at.”

 _Oh_. 

The electroshock bracelets. 

He nods curtly, and she beams, patting his chest one last time before bounding off to fiddle with her toolbox again.

They’re given a break before the final round, and Katsuki heads up to the cafeteria to get away from all the people glaring at him. Of course, because his luck is absolutely _terrible_ , he runs into another duo who decides it’s in their best interests to have a private conversation in the middle of a fucking corridor

“S—So what did you want to talk about?” Izuku asks shyly, staring at an impassive Todoroki with nervous eyes.

He’s met with silence, and Katsuki watches curiously from the shadows as Izuku starts to wring his hands anxiously.

“If we don’t hurry, the cafeteria will probably be full,” he tries again. Todoroki simply glares back at him coldly, eyes narrowed. 

They stand in uncomfortable quiet for what feels like far too long.

Then, after a beat of silence, “I was overpowered.”

Endeavour’s son says it like it’s painful, gaze steady on Izuku’s. 

“So much so that I broke my pledge.”

The student lifts his left hand from his pocket, watching it distantly.

“The others didn’t feel it, but for that last instant... I was overpowered. Only me... who had experienced All Might’s power up-close during the USJ attack.”

Izuku straightens slightly at the mention of the hero, eyes growing focused.

“What... what do you mean?” he asks, slightly nervous.

Todoroki’s eyes lift from his own upturned palm to look at Izuku with an unreadable expression.

“It means I felt something similar coming from you.”

Izuku’s gasps audibly at this, like the shitty actor he is. His panic is transparent on his face as Todoroki takes a step towards him, and asks, “Midoriya, are you... All Might’s secret love child or something?”

Crickets.

For a goddamn second, Katsuki swears he could almost hear crickets.

This... this _fucking idiot_.

He was so, _so_ goddamn close... yet so far. 

Katsuki wants to punch him.

Izuku looks just as bewildered as Katsuki feels at the accusation, arms flailing everywhere as he stammers out a weak, “I—I’m not! I mean, even if I was, I’d probably say no, so I doubt you’d believe me, but—that’s not how it is! I don’t know why you—”

Todoroki cuts him off with a quiet click of his tongue.

“Since you said ‘that’s not how it is’, that means there _is_ a connection between you and All Might that you can’t talk about. Right?”

Izuku blanches, blood draining from his face in moments. He opens his mouth shakily, but before he can dig himself into any deeper of a pit, Katsuki sighs and stomps out from the corner loudly.

“Oi, Deku,” he grunts, and the two of their heads snap towards him, Todoroki in anger and Izuku in sheer relief. “Get to the fucking cafeteria, dumbass.”

Izuku nods, taking advantage of the out Katsuki is giving him to scamper away from the situation eagerly. Todoroki watches him go blankly, before he turns his gaze to Katsuki.

They stare at each other for a moment, analysing. And then Todoroki turns away with a huff.

“So annoying,” he says quietly.

The feeling is very much mutual, Katsuki thinks to himself, spinning on his heel and walking back.

As he heads through the cafeteria with his tray, he sees Kaminari and the grape fucker telling Yaoyorozu and Jirou about some obviously made-up scheme to get the girls into cheerleader costumes. The two girls eat it up, eyes shining with concern.

“Oh! I hadn’t known about it!” Yaoyorozu cries to herself. 

The two creeps fistbump behind their backs, and Katsuki’s expression twists in disgust, stomach filling with hot anger within moments.

He beelines straight toward them, and boots the purple bitch straight into a trashcan. After a moment’s hesitation, he then flicks Kaminari in the forehead for good measure.

The other blonde yelps, rearing back and clutching his face.

“Dude! What the hell?” he cries, glaring at a very unimpressed Katsuki.

The latter ignores him, turning to a confused-looking Yaoyorozu and Jirou.

“The perverts are lying. Don’t get caught up in their bullshit or you’ll end up embarrassing yourselves, idiots.”

The girls look a mixture of chastised and indignant at his words, while Kaminari frowns at him.

“We were just having fun, man, no need to get pissy...”

The glare Katsuki turns on him is _chilling_ , and Kaminari shrinks back under it.

“If your idea of fun is being a sexist piece of shit then go somewhere else. We’re here to learn how to be heroes, so get some damn self-respect and start acting like it.”

Kaminari falls silent, suddenly looking very ashamed, and Katsuki marches past him to slam his lunch down next to a wide-eyed Kirishima, who’s eating happily a few tables away.

“Y—You good, bro?” the other asks tentatively. Katsuki sucks in a deep breath, the corners of his vision still tinged red.

“That fucker isn’t sitting with us until he gets his fucking shit together,” he says, the non-answer making the redhead’s brow furrow.

“I—Okay, I guess? What did he do?”

Katsuki growls, and the other raises his hands placatingly.

“Okay, okay. Fine.”

They eat in silence for a few minutes, before a tray slams down loud next to Katsuki’s.

“Afternoon, boys!” Hatsume announces cheerily. Katsuki doesn’t answer her, still eating his food with a disconcerting amount of aggression.

To her credit, the pink-haired girl is completely unphased by it, simply grinning and tucking into her own food.

Kirishima stares at the two awkwardly.

“So how do you guys know each other?” he tries stiltedly after a few moments. Hatsume smiles widely, flashing a peace sign at the bewildered redhead. “We only met today during the competition, but it seems we get along well!”

She pats Katsuki’s chest with a knowing glint in her eye, right over where his knife is strapped. The blonde glares at her futilely, half-heartedly attempting to bat her hand away.

Kirishima looks even more confused than he had earlier, but simply nods slowly.

Hatsume, it seems, can never stop fiddling. Through the ten minutes that she sits at the lunch table with them, nine of them are spent with her absently tinkering with her tools while she eats. It’s fucking _annoying_ , but it doesn’t take a genius to notice how smart the girl is. He’s kind of intrigued by all her gear, if he’s being honest.

When she’s done scarfing down her meal, she grabs Katsuki’s left hand and attempts to strap one of her inventions to _him_. The bitch is so fucking _touchy_ for someone who’s known him for all of three hours. He shoves her away on instinct, making her cackle as he curses her out viciously. But after a moment of inspecting the thing she’s trying to test out, his curiosity overtakes his self-preservation and he begrudgingly offers his arm back to her.

It’s a small silver square that she places on the back of his wrist, looking quite similar to the one she’d been tossing up and down during the cavalry battle planning time. He eats with his right hand as he watches, and Kirishima stares at the two of them apprehensively, shooting Katsuki a look that very clearly says ‘ _why are you letting this strange woman touch you????’_

Katsuki just shrugs at him in response, shoving another mouthful of rice in his mouth. He’s not really _sure_ why he’s trusting her, if he’s being completely honest with himself.

The square seems to expand the same way the other one did, slowly unfolding over his skin to form a thin sheet of flexible metal that rapidly molds around his hand to form a glove-like shape.

“Hm,” Katsuki says at her expectant look. He’s impressed, but he schools his expression into one of mild interest. Kirishima, having no such qualms, drops his chopsticks, jaw hanging open.

“Wow,” he says. “That’s. Wow.”

Hatsume preens at the words, and Katsuki flexes his arm slowly, feeling out the glove.

“What’s it do?”

The girl turns to him with shining eyes, and places a spoon in his gloved grip tenderly. Katsuki blinks at it for a moment, slowly closing his fingers around it only for the motherfucking _metal_ spoon to _bend in his grip like playdough_.

He chokes on his rice, accepting the cup of water that a giggling Hatsume offers him.

“What—” he coughs hoarsely, “the _fuck_.”

The inventor is bouncing in her seat like a child, and Kirishima shoots Katsuki a vaguely terrified look over the table that he can’t help but sympathise with.

“It’s my special baby!” she announces happily. “I haven’t tested out exactly how much force it has, yet, but it punches through bricks like butter!”

Even Katsuki can’t hide his impressed look at this, and Hatsume clearly notices, if her pleased laughter is anything to go by.

“That’s... huh,” he says. “That’s pretty cool, Hatsume, I’m not gonna lie.”

Her smile softens into something more genuine for a moment, cheeks flushing. Kirishima straightens from his side of the table with an indignant pout.

“Oi, oi, how come you call her by her name but I’m still Shitty-hair?!”

Katsuki turns to him slowly, flexing the glove in his grip.

“Make a portable glove that can crush metal and then we’ll talk, Shitty-hair.”

Kirishima mulls this over for a moment, before nodding weakly.

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s fair, actually.”

They slowly finish eating and pack up, the mood a lot less tense than it had been before.

The next round is called, and the students all head down to determine their brackets.

Before Midnight can even call the first name, a hand is shooting in the air.

It’s Ojiro, the one with the tail quirk.

“I’m withdrawing,” he announces shakily.

There’s protest immediately, but he shakes his head resolutely. 

“I... I barely remember anything from the cavalry battle. I know that this is a chance, and I’m foolish to waste it, but... I can’t compete with everyone else not knowing how I even got here. I only passed through because of someone else’s quirk.”

Damn.

Katsuki’s actually pretty impressed.

There’s awed silence, and Izuku looks like he’s on the verge of tears at the speech.

Moments later, another student is raising his hand for the same reasons.

Midnight accepts their withdrawal with far too much enthusiasm, and they’re promptly replaced by members from 1-B, but the mood is a lot heavier after their departure.

The brackets are announced, with Katsuki being paired with someone called _Shinsou Hitoshi_.

He echoes the name in confusion, only to have the purple-haired boy who’d challenged him before, stepping up to him quietly.

“So it’s finally time for me to knock you down a peg or two,” Shinsou mutters under his breath. Katsuki blinks at him, and all the eyes that are currently on the two of them. To his utter surprise, Shinsou is getting a lot more glares than him, most of them downright murderous. 

_Huh_ , Katsuki thinks. He wonders what the guy did to piss off people so much that they hate him even more than they hate Katsuki.

He opens his mouth to respond, but moments later a thick rope-like appendage is curling around him and yanking him away. He raises a hand on instinct, ready to blast it away, but Ojiro’s panicked call makes him halt.

“Bakugou!” he hisses. “I have to talk to you.”

Katsuki stares at him expectantly, hand still held up threateningly. Ojiro flushes, quickly retracting his tail with a sheepish smile.

“Don’t answer him,” he says desperately. “His quirk... it works by getting people to respond to things he says to them. I don’t know exactly what it is, but after I answered his question my memory went blank, and I just did whatever he told me to.”

Katsuki blinks, mulling the information over. Suddenly the glares directed at Shinsou make a lot more sense.

“Okay,” he says finally. “And you’re telling me this... why?”

They aren’t even _close_ , for god’s sake. Ojiro winces, rubbing at the back of his neck with an embarrassed grimace.

“Ah...” he mutters. “You probably think I’m pathetic for withdrawing, huh...”

Katsuki tilts his head in confusion, wondering what the hell that has to do with his question. 

“I would’ve done the same. You did what any honorable person would do. But that doesn’t explain why you’re trying to help me right now.”

Surprise flickers over the other’s face at the words, as if he’d truly expected Katsuki to spit in his face and call him an idiot for withdrawing or something. Finally, Ojirou shrugs.

“I just don’t want you to fall into the same trap I did. I know it might be selfish, but... I really want to see you win this battle.”

 _I want you to beat him_ , is the message that goes unsaid. It’s obvious that Ojiro probably couldn’t give less of a fuck whether Katsuki _actually_ does well or not. If anything, he’d rather see him lose. He just wants to see Shinsou fail even _more_ than that.

“So you want me to beat him,” Katsuki says flatly. “You’re pissed because he took away your opportunity and you want revenge.”

Ojiro jerks back, flushing a dark red but unable to refute him.

“I just—” he begins, but Katsuki shrugs.

“Okay. I can understand that. You don’t need to explain yourself to me.”

Ojiro blinks.

“Y—Yeah. I, um. I’m not sure how exactly I ended up breaking out of the effects of his quirk but I think any physical jolt should do it.”

He’s looking away awkwardly, as if unsure of how to proceed. 

“Cool,” Katsuki says easily. “Thanks for the heads up, I guess.”

And then he turns on his heel and walks away without another word, wondering why the hell so many people are trying to talk to him today. All this social interaction is making him act _nice_ and shit.

Gross.

The first match is Todoroki and Sero’s. It’s over pathetically quickly, with the former encasing the raven-haired boy in a giant mountain of ice within moments of the match’s start. Katsuki feels kind of bad for Sero, honestly. It wasn’t the greatest matchup, and Todoroki obviously has a boatload of fucking issues. He ends up having to melt his ice himself, as half the stadium stands frozen in place.

The next match is between Izuku and Hatsume, and it’s quite honestly fucking comical. Katsuki’s respect for Hatsume grows exponentially when she manages to guilt Izuku into wearing her gear, and then pulls out a motherfucking _microphone_ and starts commentating. She leads the idiot around by the nose, letting him chase her fruitlessly as she outlines every single aspect of the gear in function. If the last match was sad, this one is downright depressing. Katsuki watches, snickering as Hatsume eventually finishes her sales pitch and forfeits the match, leaving Izuku standing victorious and yet utterly defeated. 

The matches move quickly, with Uraraka beating Aoyama, and Kaminari losing tragically against the 1-B girl with the vine quirk after spending so long flirting and not taking her seriously that she just ends up leaving him suspended in the air. Katsuki laughs at this with no small amount of vindictiveness. 

Kirishima faces off against the 1-B guy who’d come yapping about with Shinsou that day during class to scout them out, and it turns out his quirk is pretty much a Walmart version of Kirishima’s. They fight for what feels like hours, before they both end up collapsing simultaneously. In the end, their fight is settled with an arm wrestle that Kirishima wins.

And then it’s Katsuki’s fight.

He steps onto the field, making eye contact with a grim-looking Shinsou. The crowd goes _wild_ , seemingly recognising Katsuki from the previous round. 

The moment Present Mic announces the beginning of the match, Shinsou is already prowling towards him.

“Say, do you ever get sick of getting everything handed to you all the time?” he drawls. “Must be nice, getting into the hero course and feeling all high and mighty with your oh-so-heroic quirk.”

Katsuki blinks, wondering if the asshole even knows what his quirk _is_. He doesn’t recall using it during the festival as of yet, so the accusation feels a little unfounded. Huh. Maybe he knows Katsuki from the sludge villain incident. 

Shinsou steps forward, eyes narrowing.

“Not even going to respond? Think you’re above me, is that what it is?”

Katsuki huffs, shaking his arm out slowly and starting to move closer. Shinsou stops, looking tempted to retreat as he finally realises Katsuki’s not going to fall for his quirk.

He opens his mouth again, but Katsuki speaks up before he can.

“Let’s make a deal,” the blonde says simply. “If you’re so hell bent on victimising yourself because of a perfectly good quirk, then go ahead. I won’t use my quirk either, to level the playing grounds. Okay?”

“The other tilts his head, a calculating look on his face.

“What game are you trying to play at, Bakugou? Do you think you can beat me by pretending to be honorable? By acting like you know _anything_ about suffering?”

He’s trying to get a response, desperately grasping at anything he can think of. It’s not working, though, and they’re both aware of it.

It does nothing to slow Katsuki’s pace. As he approaches, Shinsou throws his fists up in front of his face, defense sloppy and clearly lacking.

In the end, all it takes is one hit.

Katsuki swings out with a right hook that Shinsou barely dodges, before following up with a tornado kick that he very much _doesn’t_ dodge. The kick collects solidly with the purple-haired boy’s cheek, and he drops like a bag of stones.

For all his bluster and convenient quirk use, Shinsou really was a one-trick pony, it seems.

Midnight throws her whip out, announcing Katsuki’s victory, and the two are made to face each other.

Shinsou is glaring at him venomously.

“So much for your declaration of war,” Katsuki deadpans like the petty asshole he is. Shinsou visibly bristles, jaw clenching and unclenching tightly.

“Really, Brainwash. You should get to know Deku. You’re both _really_ good at victimising yourselves because you refuse to acknowledge your own shortcomings. You’d get along wonderfully.”

“And what makes you think you know anything about me?” Shinsou snaps back sharply, but Katsuki simply raises a brow. The match is over, but he’s not stupid enough to fall for the trick now-or ever, for that matter. He simply shrugs smugly and walks off the field without another word.

There are a few more matches after his that Katsuki ends up missing, before the first round of battles is over. The next one begins with Izuku facing off against Todoroki. 

The two are engaged in some kind of stare off when they enter the arena, and it doesn’t take a genius to see that they’ve clearly just had an intense conversation. 

This fight, it turns out, is one of the first that’s actually _interesting_.

From the instant the match starts, the atmosphere of the stadium drops into something more intense.Todoroki uses only his right side, sending volley after volley of ice towards Izuku. The latter deflects them with flicks of his finger, and ends up breaking pretty much all the fingers on his hand for his efforts. 

They wreck the entire arena with their fight, throwing each other around like rag dolls. The air produced by the combination of Todoroki’s ice and Izuku’s force is chilling, blasting through the arena. 

It’s a battle of endurance, the two of them drawing in and out again as they push one anothers’ limits.

“Damn, Midoriya really doesn’t stand a chance,” Kirishima observes from next to Katsuki as Todoroki sends another trail of frost shooting towards Izuku. The green-haired boy has broken all the fingers on his right hand and two on his left, but he’s watching Todoroki with sharp eyes.

“Don’t underestimate him,” Katsuki says quietly.

Kirishima’s head snaps towards him, along with pretty much everyone else sitting with them.

“Wait, _you’re_ rooting for Midoriya?” Kirishima says incredulously. Katsuki doesn’t take his eyes off the match, and the minute tremble to Todoroki’s right arm. 

“I’m not rooting for either of those idiots. I’m saying that Endeavour’s son isn’t as strong as you’re making him out to be. He’s acting reckless, and if he keeps this shit up then Deku is going to end up winning.”

They all turn their gazes back to the match and watch in silence for a moment as Todoroki sends another spray of ice at Izuku.

“Yeah, I really don’t see it, man,” Sero says awkwardly. “Todoroki’s quirk is like, _ridiculously_ OP. Midoriya’s getting pummelled here.”

Katsuki sighs, leaning forward in his seat.

“Look at Todoroki’s left arm,” he says simply. The others squint down at the field obediently.

“It’s... um. It’s covered in ice,” Ashido says dumbly. Katsuki groans.

“ _Exactly_. His body is built to accommodate both fire _and_ ice, but he’s been overusing his ice side all fucking day. His body’s struggling to thermoregulate with the constant exertion of his ice quirk, and if he doesn’t either slow his colder attacks or give in and start using his fire soon, he’s going to get himself killed. He’s already bordering on hypothermia at this point.”

Brief silence follows his words, and then a synchronised, “ _Ohhh_...” echoes from the group beside him.

Katsuki leans back in his seat with a frown.

“Quirks are extensions of our bodies. No matter how good your quirk is, it’s only as strong as you train it to be. Overuse or abuse them and they’ll fail just like any other muscle or limb.”

Kirishima stares at him with wide eyes.

“Dude,” he breathes. “You’re like... _really_ smart.”

He’s met with awed murmurs of agreement from the others, who are also staring at Katsuki in wonder.

The blonde smacks him upside the head without looking away from the match, earning a yelp.

“Keep watching, dumbass,” he grumbles. “I’m fighting you next. Give me a good fight or I’ll kill you.”

Kirishima pouts, rubbing the back of his head.

“How the hell am I supposed to beat you? You’re OP _and_ smart as hell...”

Katsuki smirks, arching a brow at him smugly.

“Sounds like a you problem.”

Ashido starts snickering, and Kirishima cries out in protest.

The match between Izuku and Todoroki ends after an unintelligible yelling match that has Todoroki firing his largest volley of ice yet, Izuku countering with a punch of his own. 

When the dust from the resulting explosion clears, Izuku is standing alone, clutching his broken arm tenderly as he stares at Todoroki’s unconscious body.

Uraraka wins her match against the vine girl (who Katsuki learns is called Shiozaki), and Tokoyami wins his match too. Soon, it’s Katsuki’s fight against Kirishima.

Kirishima’s got guts, Katsuki will give him that. The redhead throws punch after hardened punch, teeth gritted sharply. But, Katsuki sighs, it seems the idiot wasn’t listening to a word Katsuki had said about Todoroki. He lets Kirishima wear himself out, hardening finally faltering as he loses traction. Then, the blonde grins.

“Oi, Kirishima,” he says when the redhead stops for a breather. “What the hell did I tell you about overusing your quirk?”

Kirishima blinks through the sweat falling into his eyes, before his expression drops.

“Oh, _shit_ ,” he has time to breathe out quietly, before Katsuki’s throwing an explosion in his barely-hardened face. And then another, and another, until rubble and dust fills the air and all Kirishima can bear to do is stand there and take it. When the smoke from his final, largest explosion clears, there’s a brief moment of silence before Kirishima topples to the ground with a _thud._

The arena goes silent for a minute, before there’s a loud, “ _Ehhh?!_ ” from a significant part of the audience.

“ _Oi, what the hell was that? Where did the explosions come from?_ ” someone cries. Katsuki scowls, turning to face the side of the crowd from where the person had shouted.

“That was my fucking quirk, _dipshit_!” he yells back, voice echoing through the stadium. 

“ _I thought his quirk was speed!_ ” a woman shouts in confusion. Another man chimes in with, “ _I thought his quirk was intellectual?!_ ”

He’s met with agreements, another woman chiming, “ _Yeah, we thought he had an analysis quirk, too!_ ”

From the back, a young man yells, “ _I_ knew _he was the kid from the slime villain attack! He looked so familiar!_ ”

Katsuki stands, speechless as the crowd gets into an argument about his quirk, right in front of him. Midnight is giving him an awkward grimace, like she doesn’t really know what to do either.

“You can just, um. You can go,” she says finally. Katsuki nods, slinging Kirishima’s limp arm around his shoulder and dragging him off the field as Midnight calls out a feeble, “Bakugou wins...” with a half-hearted snap of her whip. Her voice is drowned out by the deafening argument that’s been sparked between the audience members.

The match marks the end of the round, and the contestants are given a brief break before the semifinals begin.

Katsuki spends most of this loitering around and avoiding people in general. He ends up sitting outside on the grass with Hatsume, letting her use him as a guinea pig for her experiments. At some point, she puts him in a contraption that almost twists his entire torso off his body, making him screech at her for a full ten minutes before she’s even allowed within two feet of him again.

It takes her another ten minutes of pleading and placating to let her keep experimenting with him, and about thirty promises to _not try and kill him this time_.

Finally, the two of them return back to the building for the next round. Katsuki is up against Tokoyami, while Izuku will fight Uraraka.

The latter’s fight is first, and it lasts impressively long. Uraraka ends up finally getting the upper hand when she finally gets a solid grip on Izuku and sends him flying in the air and out of bounds, moving her into the finals.

Then it’s Katsuki’s match with Tokoyami. The fight is quite straightforward. Katsuki is on the offensive, significantly more so than he has been so far today, and after a few minutes he realises that Tokoyami’s quirk is pretty much useless against light. So he fires consecutive attacks, not pausing in between his explosions lest Dark Shadow gain enough time to recharge. He sees the exact moment Tokoyami realises that Katsuki knows his weakness, mere instants before he lets off his biggest explosion yet, launching into the air with a grin and propelling himself straight towards his opponent.

When the smoke clears, Tokoyami’s beak is pinned under his palm, and Dark Shadow lies beneath him, faint and wispy. 

“You knew my weakness,” Tokoyami rasps. It’s not a question, but Katsuki grins ferally anyway. 

“Figured it out a few minutes into our fight. Guess it was a bad matchup for you, huh.”

Tokoyami’s tense body sags, and he shuts his eyes.

“I give up.”

Midnight’s whip sails through the air decisively as she announces Katsuki’s victory. He straightens smugly, turning to head out of the stadium. 

Just as he’s stepping off the field, there’s a sudden itch at the back of his neck, as if someone’s watching him. Which, he realises, is fucking _stupid_. He’s on live television, competing in front of a stadium of spectators. Fucking _obviously_ there are people watching him. But he turns nonetheless, almost involuntarily, feeling the skin at his nape crawl with something unfamiliar that sets his teeth on edge. His eyes catch on a section of the audience that’s full of bouncing spectators. Among them stands a man in a crisp suit, unmoving among the cheering audience that surrounds him. He’s looking straight at Katsuki, expression completely unreadable. The moment their eyes meet, a chill rolls all the way down Katsuki’s body, starting at his spine and running down to the tips of his fingers. A flicker of raw shock crosses the man’s eyes when Katsuki holds his gaze, before it disappears behind impassiveness once more. And then he’s jerked away by Midnight, who’s ushering him off the field gently. He lets himself be led off, but when he turns again to the crowd, the man in the suit is gone.

His final match is with Uraraka. He’s learned enough from her fight with Izuku to know that he’ll be mostly safe as long as he stays out of her reach, so he focuses on defense. She’s evidently realised this, too, because the instant the match begins, she’s sprinting towards him with her arms out low. He blasts her backward, but she’s pushing ahead again before the smoke even clears. The girl is _relentless_ , sheer determination gleaming in her eyes. It sends Katsuki’s blood boiling with excitement, and he lets a grin slip onto his face at the promise of a good fight. Uraraka takes blow after blow, bouncing back like it’s nothing. The blood leaking from the edge of her lips does nothing to soften the red-hot resolution in her gaze, and Katsuki realises with a jolt that he may have _grossly_ underestimated her. He’s just getting into it when there’s a cry from the audience. The first one is inaudible, but then others are speaking up too. 

“ _Just end it already!_ ” someone yells, loud enough to carry across the stadium. “ _Yeah! Stop bullying the poor girl!_ ”

The jeers grow in volume, Uraraka’s expression twisting in frustration as she hears them. As the entire section of pro heroes starts to boo at him, Katsuki sees _red_. He’s moments from tearing into them himself when there’s a rustle from the commentator’s box, and Aizawa-sensei’s voice is booming over the speakers.

“Was that a pro saying he’s messing around? How many years have you been a pro?”

The stadium falls silent instantly at the coldness in Aizawa-sensei’s voice. 

“If you’re saying that with a straight face, there’s no point in you watching anymore. Just go home and look into changing careers.”

At this, both Uraraka and Katsuki straighten for a moment, turning to face the commentator’s box. Aizawa-sensei’s figure is tiny from the field, body still wrapped in bandages like a mummy.

The heroes who had been jeering are now standing frozen.

“Bakugou is being careful because he’s acknowledging Uraraka’s strength as a finalist. It’s because he’s doing everything in his power to win that he can’t let his guard down.”

Katsuki thinks, not for the first time, that Aizawa-sensei is the only damn adult around here with half a brain. The moment the slightly-muffled words leave the teacher’s mouth, Uraraka is meeting Katsuki’s gaze, her faltering expression shifting back into that of resolute determination. There’s an ugly viciousness to her look, gritty and raw, and he wonders if the audience would still call her pitiful if they could see it up-close.

“Thank you for not going easy on me,” she says breathlessly.

He watches as she straightens, chest heaving as she raises her hands to bring her fingertips together with a guttural cry.

Her eyes lift upward to somewhere above his head, and he follows them in time to see the slowly-growing cloud of rocks start to rain down towards him.

Simultaneously, Uraraka sprints towards him, gritted teeth bared in a snarl.

It all happens in a matter of moments.

Katsuki raises his hand to the sky, palm heating red-hot moments before an explosion erupts from it, so big that Uraraka is blown backwards and the entire stadium is filled with thick black smoke.

When the grey finally clears, the air thinning out again, Uraraka is on the ground, trembling fingers scrabbling against rubble. Katsuki watches, unable to move for what feels like hours. He can’t describe what he feels in those moments, but when she finally falls limp, the desperation clouding her gaze makes the victory feel hollow. The audience doesn’t cheer, a hushed air of disappointment falling over the field as Midnight finally announces the match.

He trudges his way back to their viewing area silently, hands buried in his pockets. His forearm is aching, muscles raw from abuse and twitching sporadically. He should probably see Recovery Girl, he thinks absent-mindedly. It’s fine. He’ll see her later.

When he reaches the top, his classmates are bickering between themselves, falling silent when he enters.

“Geez, Bakugou, that was intense,” Kirishima mutters as he sits down wordlessly. He hums noncommittally, and the students all return to their conversations as Present Mic advertises some energy drink over the speakers.

Minutes later, the door is opening again and Uraraka is shuffling in, looking battered but cheerful. 

She’s met by half of the class immediately, the group fussing over her anxiously. She laughs them off, smiling half-heartedly as she moves past them to sit down. 

When the brunette passes Katsuki, an ashamed expression crosses her face, and she averts her gaze quickly.

“Ah, Bakugou-kun...” she murmurs. “You’re... you’re seriously strong, huh... Congratulations!”

He looks her over once, seeing the frustration she’s hiding behind her strained smile, and blinks. Their classmates watch silently, unsure of how to proceed. From behind Uraraka, Kirishima is mouthing, ‘ _be nice!’_ while gesturing exaggeratedly. Katsuki ignores him.

“Your technique isn’t completely hopeless but your stamina sucks and your poker face is shit,” he says.

Uraraka startles, and Kirishima facepalms in the background, along with half the class. 

“ _Dude_ !” Sero hisses. “ _She just lost a match, can you not?!_ ”

Katsuki turns to stare at him flatly. The last thing this girl needs right now is sympathy; it’s written all over her face that if one more person tries to console her, she’s going to go feral.

“She’s not made of fucking glass, Tapeface,” he snaps. “I’m not gonna throw her a pity party because she lost a fucking fight.”

Sero groans, burying his face in his palms as Kirishima pats his back sympathetically. Uraraka, on the other hand is staring at Katsuki with an unreadable expression. She doesn’t move.

They hold eye contact for a long moment.

“Take an internship with someone who specialises in hand-to-hand. And stop announcing your plans like an idiot,” he deadpans.

She winces, but the frustration behind her grimace has softened slightly, and she nods once.

“No offense, but how are you so sure she’ll get offered an internship from someone like that?” Jirou cuts in dryly.

He doesn’t bother turning to address the question, instead standing from his seat as he finally gives in to the pain lancing up his arm and decides to go to Recovery Girl.

“She will,” he says simply, brushing past them and out the door.

“That was... weirdly encouraging,” he hears Kirishima mumble as he leaves. Then, a beat of silence. “Uraraka!” Ashido cries. “Are you _blushing?!_ ”

Recovery Girl heals Katsuki’s arm with a wet kiss to his forehead and a stern warning. He’s ushered straight from the infirmary to the waiting room, where the podiums will rise for the award ceremony.

Uraraka is waiting there awkwardly, not meeting his eyes when he enters.

“Bakugou-kun,” she calls when he arrives, “would you fight me again sometime?”

He shrugs, picking at the compression bandage wrapped around his forearm. It’s completely unnecessary, considering Recovery Girl had already _healed_ it, but he knows better than to argue with someone as terrifying as her.

“I don’t see why not,” he says simply. She nods, looking somewhat surprised at his easy agreement.

Izuku stands on Katsuki’s other side, having won his fight against Tokoyami. He’s covered in bandages, all four of his limbs and his abdomen wrapped in white. There’s gauze around his head, and little bandaids litter his face and bared skin. 

They wait in stilted silence until the podiums finally rise from the ground and up into the stadium. 

The three of them are greeted with deafening cheers, and All Might lands down in front of them in his muscle form, completely speaking over Midnight’s introduction speech like the mess he is. There’s an awkward pause where the two heroes appraise each other, unsure of who should speak first, before Midnight sheepishly hands All Might the medals for presentation.

He lays the third place medal over Izuku’s neck and hugs him loosely, making Katsuki snicker at the way the idiot turns bright red under the touch.

Then he awards Uraraka’s medal in a similar manner, before finally turning to face Katsuki. 

There’s a hint of intimidation in the hero’s smiling eyes as he nears Katsuki with the first place medal. 

“All Might,” he murmurs quietly as the hero leans in to place the medal on him. 

“Y—Yes, Young Bakugou?”

Katsuki hums, smiling lightly. 

“Come closer. I want to tell you something.”

All Might swallows thickly, smile wavering as he nods once and leans in closer. When the hero is near enough that no one else can hear them, Katsuki lifts a hand from his pocket to pat his large shoulder gently.

“Every bone that Izuku breaks from now on is a year of your life lost,” he says serenely, mouth barely moving. “Is that clear?”

The blood drains from All Might’s face, and Katsuki feels a minute tremble run through the pro’s body from where his hand still lays firmly on his shoulder.

All Might coughs into his fist once, nodding shakily.

Katsuki draws back, smiling thinly.

“Thank you for the medal, All Might.”

When the hero turns to address the crowd again, there’s a terrified glint to his grin. 

“What did you say to him?” Uraraka asks curiously as All Might proceeds to fuck up the school’s singular motto, making the crowd shout at him angrily.

“Nothing,” Katsuki replies, watching the pro sheepishly bow in ten different directions to placate the roaring audience. “Just smile and wave.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much to evelyn for beta-ing ur an absolute angel and i would straight up die for u,,,, (their ao3 is newdae and their fics are amazing!!) also thank u to windy for helping me plan out plot and stuff and giving me advice on writing (ao3 is Windschild8178 although you guys have probably read their stuff already KJSDFJKSD) <3333


	7. seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hero names and internship offers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! this one's a bit shorter but it's mainly here to set up for the next chapter (y'all know what that is by now LMAO)
> 
> i'd like to clarify something here that i probably should have clarified earlier. katsuki is a male and uses (and will continue to use) he/him pronouns. i know a lot of you were confused about this and i'm sorry if i ever led you to believe i'd be writing it otherwise, but this fic was not written with me imagining katsuki as trans. he's struggling with past memories and experiences as a female and is confused and a little disoriented. i absolutely love the trans katsuki hc but as a cis person i don't really feel informed enough on trans peoples' experiences to accurately depict katsuki as trans here. the lines are blurred with reincarnation and it makes this entire thing a little grey so i'd rather not risk misrepresenting, or making faulty assumptions. apologies again if this is disappointing to any of you.

They’re sent back to their classroom immediately after the sports festival.

“There will be no school for the following two days,” Aizawa-sensei says, his deadpan voice still slightly muffled through his bandages.

“Take this break to spend time with your family and friends and recover.”

He’s being about as much of an asshole as normal, but his voice is softened in a way that suggests even he is slightly sympathetic to the students’ exhaustion. The entire group of them are slumped in their seats, covered in an assortment of bandages and bruising. Katsuki thumbs the gold medal in his blazer pocket absentmindedly as he wonders how much of UA’s budget is allocated to medical care. 

He turns briefly to glance at Iida’s empty seat. Katsuki doesn’t remember even seeing him in the final rounds of the festival, now that he thinks about it. To his right, Kaminari is avoiding Katsuki’s gaze pointedly, with a pained grimace that Katsuki finds deep satisfaction in. 

They’re dismissed minutes later, Aizawa-sensei finally taking pity on them, and Katsuki is out of the door without another word.

His parents are on him the second the door opens, smothering him in hugs and kisses and other gross affection that he loudly protests while secretly leaning into.

“Oh, Katsuki, you did amazing!” his dad cries, muffling a sob into his son’s shoulder. The teenager grimaces at the feeling of moisture soaking through the fabric of his shirt, and extricates himself from his parents’ grip carefully.

“Yeah, yeah, soft shit is over,” he announces. “I won, we get it. No surprises there.”

His mother smacks him upside the head at the comment, but she’s grinning fondly.

“You didn’t kill or seriously injure anyone, so I guess you didn’t do too bad,” she says roughly, ruffling his hair. “I made your favourite curry, hurry up and shower so you can tell us about today while we eat.”

“You already saw that shit on the news,” he complains. “Why the hell would I have to tell you about it again? Weren’t you fucking watching?”

His mother’s eyes narrow, and he beelines to his room obediently without another word before she inevitably begins to throw shit.

He collapses onto his bed when he gets out of the shower, huffing a loud sigh. The exhaustion from the day is slowly setting in, and he can feel the tell-tale ache of overused muscles starting to tug at his body.

At his bedside table, his phone has been buzzing insistently for the past few minutes. Groaning loudly, he finally turns over to check it, only to see approximately thirty new messages from Hatsume, all rambling about some new invention idea she’s had. He only gave his number to her three hours ago, but it’s already proving to be a mistake. Just as he’s scrolling through them all, another ten or so come in.

**walmart entrapta**

hey baku

5:21pm

**walmart entrapta**

baku baku baku baku

5:21pm

**walmart entrapta**

do you think i could make like,,, projectile electroshock things

5:22pm

**walmart entrapta**

think about it,,, grenades but make them electric

5:22pm

**walmart entrapta**

u just flip a switch and throw them at someone and fuckin FRY them

5:22pm

**walmart entrapta**

ugh my mind…. it amazes me sometimes

5:23pm

**walmart entrapta**

cmon new bff wya

5:23pm

**walmart entrapta**

what are friends for if not discussing support gear ideas???

5:23pm

**walmart entrapta**

bakuuuu

5:23pm

**walmart entrapta**

this relationship feels very one-sided i want a platonic divorce

5:24pm

**walmart entrapta**

>:((((((((((((((((((((

5:24pm

**Me**

we’re not platonically together stupid bitch

5:26pm

**walmart entrapta**

yeah we won’t be if you keep neglecting me wtf

5:27pm

Against his better judgement, Katsuki chuckles quietly at her antics, shooting her another brief reply before pushing to his feet and shuffling to the living room, his limbs creaking in protest every step of the way. He wonders if this is what Izuku feels like on a daily basis. 

He spends the next two days lounging around lazily, even letting his mother massage his calves for once because he doesn’t have the willpower to say no when it feels so good on his sore muscles. Kenjirou-sensei visits to congratulate him on his victory the next day, while Saki-sensei blows up his phone with disgustingly cute Line emojis. The two days of reprieve are over cruelly quickly, and soon he’s on the morning train to UA again.

“Hey, it’s the UA first-year sports festival winner!” someone stage-whispers a few seats down from where he’s sitting. He feels about fifteen pairs of eyes turn to him, before the carriage dissolves into whispering.

“Hey, kid, great work!” an old man sitting behind Katsuki says excitedly as he claps a hand on the blonde’s shoulder. He’s echoed by a few other people who are staring at Katsuki in awe or admiration. The student brushes the hand away wordlessly, muttering out a flat, “thanks,” and proceeding to shove his other earphone in his ear and tune out the murmuring.

His mom’s probably gonna be on his ass about being rude later, but with the muted clicks of phone cameras going off all around him shamelessly, he can’t find it in himself to be sympathetic.

He’s swarmed by more people when he gets off the train, and it takes him an extra fifteen minutes to get to school when he ends up having to duck into a side route to avoid the cameras.

Iida is back in his seat again today, a very-much forced smile plastered on his face as he greets Katsuki.

“You look like you’re having a rough day,” Katsuki notes dryly, fully aware of the fact that it’s not even eight in the morning.

The other huffs a humourless laugh, lip curling downward with something ugly before it’s replaced by a formal smile again.

“I assure you, I am fine, Bakugou. I appreciate the concern.”

Katsuki blinks, shoving his bag under his desk carelessly.

“Wasn’t concerned,” he says bluntly, wondering who the fuck pissed off the normally straight-laced student.

He mulls it over for a brief moment, before shrugging to himself when he remembers that it really doesn’t concern him in the slightest. The other students start to filter in slowly, all still looking slightly sore but refreshed nonetheless.

Aizawa-sensei enters the classroom at eight o’clock on the dot, bandage-free and weary as always.

“Today we’re choosing hero names,” he says flatly, and the class proceeds to fall into chaos as they do when receiving any news of slightly importance. It seems their teacher isn’t having any of their bullshit today, because his hair begins to float, eyes turning a dangerous red, and the teenagers all settle down immediately.

Midnight enters to handle the hero names, while Aizawa-sensei curls into his sleeping bag and watches listlessly.

They’re all given a few minutes to scrawl down their names on the small whiteboards they’ve been given. Katsuki scrawls his down easily in neat letters, having thought of it long ago in middle school. _Ground Zero_ , an English phrase that he’d mulled over for a while. After he’s written it down, he sits back in his chair and waits for everyone to finish with theirs. Midnight, catching sight of his bored expression, clears her throat.

“Please make sure to think carefully about your name!” she says while looking right at Katsuki like the bitch she is. “A lot of hero names used by students become recognised by the public, so even if it is possible to change your hero name down the road, it’s important to be sure about what name you pick now.”

Katsuki narrows his eyes at her pointed look and the implication that he _hasn’t_ spent months making sure his name is fucking perfect. But nonetheless, the mood in the classroom drops at her words, and Katsuki can’t help but glancing back at his whiteboard for a split second.

 _It’s fine_ , he reassures himself after a moment’s hesitation. He’s thought about this for years, and the name he’s chosen is good as hell. 

(No matter how much he brushes aside his doubts, there’s still a niggling feeling at the back of his mind that screams _not right_.)

He turns the board face-down on his desk and fishes his phone out of his desk to occupy himself, deciding to finally reply to the fifteen texts Hatsume has sent him since the beginning of the lesson. Midnight blinks at the sight of him using his phone, before turning to Aizawa-sensei unsurely. The other teacher shrugs at her, and she seems to let it go hesitantly. Katsuki has long-since learned that Aizawa-sensei doesn’t give a fuck about students being on their phones in class, as long as they’re not slacking on work. It’s an unspoken agreement between him and Katsuki that Iida tends to strongly disapprove of.

“Well, who wants to go first?” Midnight asks after a few more minutes, making Katsuki put his phone down. The students all go up one by one, some nervous and others far too confident considering how shitty their choices are.

Izuku chooses fucking _Deku_ , and Iida goes with his first name. When Katsuki’s name is called, he stalks to the front of the classroom to stand at the podium with a sigh. 

“My hero name…” he starts, raising his whiteboard to turn it to face the class. The class seems to hold their breath in anticipation, and Katsuki’s words stick in his throat. All of a sudden, the feeling that was previously just a niggling voice in the back of his mind is now screaming at him, his entire body thrumming with this foreign feeling of _NOT RIGHT_. It’s fucking stupid, and probably vaguely concerning, but he can’t bring himself to announce the perfectly good and planned hero name he has written. His mouth snaps shut.

“I don’t know,” he says finally, voice a lot quieter than before. 

The class is silent for a long moment, before they start to shout at once.

“What the hell, what was all the hype for, then?” Kaminari demands loudly. Katsuki raises an eyebrow at him. 

“I didn’t hype anything. If you’re getting excited over mundane shit then that’s your problem.”

At this, Kaminari starts to whine. 

Midnight is watching Katsuki curiously, and Aizawa-sensei’s eyes are narrowed from behind her, where he’s suddenly sitting a little straighter.

“I recall you writing something with quite a lot of confidence at the start of the lesson, so I’m sure you had something..?” the female pro hero presses carefully.

Katsuki shrugs. 

“I changed my mind.”

Midnight stares at him for a long moment, before her expression changes to one of pity, as if she’s staring at a kicked puppy.

“Bakugou, there’s no need to feel pressured. I’m sure the name you picked is wonderful, and your class will support you no matter what you choose!” she assures passionately, suddenly looking very invested in this entire mess.

Katsuki levels a flat look at her.

“I literally could not care less about what these losers think of my choices. I just changed my mind,” he deadpans, earning offended looks from most of his class who had just been giving him cheers of support.

Midnight pouts.

“Can we at least see what you wrote?” she implores, leaning closer to catch a glimpse of his board. He clutches it to his chest instantly, snarling at her, and she leans back with her pout deepened. 

“That’s enough,” Aizawa-sensei finally says, squirming out of his sleeping bag reluctantly.

“Bakugou, you can take more time to decide. Get back in your seat.”

As he heads back between the aisles, he catches sight of Ashido and a few others eyeing his board curiously, and he quickly uses his sleeve to erase the writing on it before anyone can snatch it from his grip. He smirks at the loud groans this action gains, slipping back to his seat and handing the blank board back to Midnight smugly.

Aizawa-sensei shuffles to the podium to lean against it wearily.

“Now that the hero names have been discussed for now, we can talk about internships. The offers have come in based on the sports festival.”

He presses a button on his remote and a horizontal bar graph is projected onto the blackboard behind him.

At the top, Katsuki sits with a bar that’s longer than most of his classmates combined, and a bright white ‘5047’.

Below him, Todoroki has received 2604 offers and Uraraka has received 1859, their bars significantly shorter than Katsuki’s but still far larger than anyone else in the class. After the three of them, most of their classmates sit around the same number, receiving offers in the hundreds and below. Izuku has a whopping zero votes. 

“Damn,” Kaminari whistles. “As expected, Bakugou makes us all look pathetic.”

There’s muttering of agreement around the classroom, and Katsuki mutters a snide, “You don’t need my help for that,” which obviously wasn’t quiet enough considering Kaminari’s exaggerated huff.

“So rude,” the other boy whines dramatically. “How are you gonna become a hero with that attitude, Bakugou-sama?”

Katsuki kicks his legs up onto his desk and leans back in his chair so he can look past Jirou to level Kaminari a smug look.

“I don’t know, Sparky, ask the five thousand heroes who want me as an intern.”

Kaminari sputters, and Jirou and Kirishima snort loudly along with a few other students.

“Remind me not to mess with Bakugou, geez,” Ashido coughs, making Katsuki’s smirk widen.

Aizawa-sensei takes advantage of the students’ chatter to pass around their internship offer papers. Katsuki accepts his silently, unsure if he should be proud or apprehensive of the intimidatingly thick stack of papers.

At the very top of the list, ‘Endeavour Agency’ is printed neatly. Katsuki does a double take at the offer, blinking at it in confusion. He knew that he’d performed well at the festival, but he’d never entertained the idea of receiving an offer from Endeavour of all people. 

He shrugs to himself, tucking the paper into his bag after a long moment’s appraisal. He’s received offers from quite a few other notable heroes, like Edgeshot, Kamui Woods, and, for some reason, Uwabami. 

Nonetheless, he knows that giving up an opportunity to intern with the number two hero would be silly, even if he doesn’t know why the fuck the guy would be interested in him. From what he knows, Endeavour doesn’t take on interns, like, _ever_. 

They’re dismissed after the lists are handed out, and Katsuki packs his bag silently. 

“Dude, what kind of offers did you get?” Kirishima asks curiously, trying to peek into his bag. 

“None of your business,” he mutters, and Kirishima wilts, frowning at him.

“Don’t be like that, man, you’ve got to have some cool offers!”

Katsuki sighs, before digging the papers out of his bag and shoving them into the redhead’s chest in the hopes that it’ll shut him up. Kirishima accepts them with a beam and is silent for five beautiful seconds, before his eyes grow to the size of saucers.

“Dude! _Dude! You got an offer from Endeavour!_ ”

Katsuki sighs, snatching the paper back and elbowing the other in the ribs.

“I _know_ , asshole, I can _read_. Why don’t you just get a fucking microphone while you’re at it?”

Kirishima flushes, rubbing at the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Sorry, man, I just got excited,” he offers with a laugh. Katsuki sighs, but the damage is done; Todoroki is glaring holes into the back of his head. 

A few other classmates give Katsuki awed or jealous looks.  
“Wow, Uraraka, you got an offer from Edgeshot! Your stealth attack must have really impressed the number five hero!” he hears Ashido exclaim as he hikes his bag onto his back and trudges past them to the door.

Uraraka laughs sheepishly, cheeks pinkening further at the attention.

“Ah, I think I might take my offer with Miruko, actually.”

Katsuki pauses briefly at the mention, thinking back to the mentioned hero. Miruko is relatively new, and as a result she hasn’t made much of a dent in the hero rankings as of yet. All that people seem to know about her is that she’s fierce, and _very_ fucking confrontational. She’s rabbit-themed, and as a result specialises in kicks and leg-based attacks. All-in-all, she’s an absolute _powerhouse_ and the epitome of hand-to-hand specialisation. He nods approvingly at her choice, almost unconsciously, but she notices it anyway and flushes slightly. Her friends all follow her gaze to Katsuki before starting to jeer. The blonde grimaces, pushing his way out of the classroom as Uraraka starts to flail. 

He eats lunch up on the roof again, not having the energy to put up with Kirishima’s excitement today. Hatsume finds him within minutes, plopping down next to him and stealing an onigirazu from him happily.

“Did you put a fucking tracker in my phone or something?” he demands curiously, not protesting as she invades his lunch. She shrugs, winking at him playfully.

“Who knows?” she mumbles around a mouthful of rice and karaage. “This is good, by the way. Make me some next time!”

Katsuki sighs, turning to his phone as he decides not to question her weird antics. He goes to scroll through the news, only to stop in his tracks at the top headline.

‘ _Breaking News: Pro Hero Ingenium Hospitalised After New Attack by Hero Killer Stain’_ , the trending title reads. Katsuki chokes on his rice, making Hatsume smack his back roughly.

He bats her away, turning his attention back to his phone hastily. _Stain…_ he repeats to himself. There’s no way… It couldn’t be _that_ Stain, right? He opens the article that details a recent attack in Hosu, skimming through it only to find blurry images of a figure clad in _very_ familiar spiked boots and scarves. A pit forms in his stomach as he reads on about the 17 people Stain has killed, and the 23 more he’s injured beyond recovery. Ingenium, Iida’s older brother, is currently hospitalised, and apparently his prospects for continuing hero work aren’t great. Suddenly, Iida’s mood in class makes a lot more sense, and a small part of Katsuki feels guilty at not asking him about it that morning. 

“What’s wrong?” Hatsume asks curiously around her second stolen onigirazu, looking away from her current fixation to peer over his shoulder at the screen curiously.

“Oh, hey, I’ve heard of that guy!” she mutters absentmindedly. “He’s the vigilante, right?”

Katsuki turns to face her slowly.

“Vigilante?” he echoes. She blinks at him, continuing to talk with her mouth full like it isn’t fucking disgusting.

“I mean, I don’t know if he can be classified as a vigilante considering that he literally _kills_ heroes, but, like… he has this whole philosophy, you know? People are talking about it, he’s going on about reforming hero society by, like, culling fake heroes or something.”

Katsuki processes the information wordlessly, realising with slight nausea that his brief conversation with Stain suddenly makes a lot more sense.

“I don’t know if I hate it,” Hatsume continues on, unaware of Katsuki’s inner turmoil. “Like, his methods are completely wrong, obviously, and murder is never justifiable, but… his philosophy isn’t fundamentally flawed. Hero society is… kinda messed up.”

She takes another mouthful of rice and chicken, chewing it thoughtfully. “He’s a little confused, but he’s got the spirit, y’know?”

Katsuki nods hollowly, still staring at his screen. Hatsume finishes the rest of his onigirazu when she realises he’s lost his appetite. As they leave, she claps him on the shoulder lightly.

“Don’t overthink it, Baku. Villains like these come up every few months, if you lost sleep over every single one you’d run yourself ragged.”

He mumbles something half hearted back, and they part ways to head to their lessons.

Their final class is hero training with All Might. The pro looks vaguely terrified at the sight of Katsuki, obviously still shaken from their exchange at the sports festival, but Katsuki can’t find it in himself to be smug about it, mind still on Stain.

When Katsuki returns home, he stays up the entire night reading up on Stain. The other is described by his fanatics (yes, apparently this guy has _fanatics_ ) as a ‘necessary evil’, or someone to be idolised. It makes Katsuki vaguely uncomfortable, and this feeling is only increased with every new image he sees of Stain. 

There’s very little information on Stain’s identity, though, past blurry photographs and his villain name.

He thinks back to their meeting, and the way the other had introduced himself as _Chizome Akaguro_. Not his code name, but an actual name. He had known Katsuki for all of two minutes, but felt comfortable enough to give him what could very well be his real name. Something about Katsuki feels nauseous at the fact, and the implication that someone like Stain could be interested in Katsuki enough to trust him with that information. 

Because what the _hell_ does that say about Katsuki? 

He doesn’t sleep well that night, tossing and turning with the new information.

  
  
  


When the day for internships arrives, the class meets at the train station in the morning so that Aizawa-sensei can see them off.

“You’ve chosen to intern with Endeavour, correct?” the teacher asks him. Katsuki nods, feeling Todoroki’s eyes on him, and Aizawa-sensei ticks something off on his clipboard before nodding curtly. They repeat the process with all of the students in the class. Ashido is bouncing nervously and a few of the teenagers are a little paler than usual.

Finally, with a few more goodbyes, all the students trudge off to their respective trains. 

Katsuki steps onto his platform with Todoroki’s gaze still burning into the back of his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please feel free to drop a comment about what you thought (and for those of y'all who were worried about leaving rambly/long/disjointed comments last time - DO NOT WORRY. i absolutely LOVE comments, and honestly? the longer they are, the better. long comments make my DAY)!! 
> 
> remember to stay safe and healthy!! if you haven't in the past two hours, get up and drink a cup of water!  
> quarantine can be a tough time - if you ever are feeling unhappy or in need of someone to talk to, please feel free to flick me a dm on twitter or tumblr, i'm always happy to listen or chat! <3


	8. eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tws for a tiny bit of blood and violence in this chapter, as it covers the hosu arc. also mentions/brief descriptions of child abuse on todoroki's part. it's all mostly canon-typical stuff.
> 
> damn i really disappeared for four months and reappeared from the dead with a 9k update,,

Endeavour is an asshole. He’s a self-absorbed, bullheaded asshole who’s stuck in the wrong career field.

“I didn’t want you as an intern,” are the first words he says to Katsuki upon meeting. The teenager blinks, lips pursing in confusion.

“No one’s holding you at gunpoint,” he points out a little dryly. “I’ll gladly leave and intern under someone else.”

At this, the flames around the hero flare out in time with his nostrils. 

“Not even a minute and you’re already giving me lip,” he growls, eyes narrowing. “Show some respect for your superior, brat.”

Katsuki has to lean back a little to make eye contact with the towering man.

“I wasn’t—” he begins, before shutting his eyes and sighing quietly. He resists the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Whatever.”

Endeavour’s nose flares once more, akin to an angry bull, but he doesn’t reprimand him again. Instead, he just glares.

“I was to take Shouto as an intern,” he says finally, looking at him with such distaste that it’s almost as if it’s _Katsuki’s_ fault that his stupid drama queen son isn’t standing in his place.

“But he wasn’t interested. And my public relations officer seems convinced that I absolutely _must_ take an intern. So I chose you instead.”

It’s true, Katsuki vaguely remembers Endeavour’s son telling Aizawa-sensei that he was going to intern with some D-lister newbie hero. A choice so illogical, given the number of offers Todoroki received, that it could only have been deliberate. Evidently, the boy has a bone to pick with his father.

Katsuki clicks his tongue noncommittally, rocking back on his heels to appraise the giant man.

“Sucks to be you,” he replies tonelessly. “Are we leaving or what?”

Endeavour doesn’t grace him with a reply, simply turning on his heel and stalking off with his flames billowing out behind him harshly.

“So dramatic,” Katsuki mutters, having to speed walk slightly to catch up to the asshole’s stupidly large strides. “I can see where your stupid son got it from.”

The flame hero doesn’t respond to the very-much audible comment, but his fire seems to swell ever-so-slightly in a way that has Katsuki’s lips curling into a smirk.

  
  


If Katsuki thought Endeavour was an asshole in conversation, he’s doubly so on the field. 

“My daughter’s toy!” a woman wails on the scene of a house fire. “She left her toy in there, it’s all she has left of my husband!”

Endeavour doesn’t spare her a second glance.

“I cannot reenter the building for a toy,” he says, stomping ahead firmly. “Please stay behind the yellow tape, Miss.”

The woman sags, the little girl in her arms starting to sob at the declaration.

“You could just get the toy,” Katsuki points out helpfully, having to jog to keep up with Endeavour’s pace. “The building isn’t even unstable, and you don’t have anything better to do right now.”

The hero glances back at him with an irritated scowl at the words.

“I’m the number two hero,” he sniffs. “I always have important things to do.”

“Like what?”

Endeavour’s face makes an odd jumpy motion at the question, before settling on a deep frown.

“Quiet,” he barks finally. “Interns should not be asking questions.”

“Damn,” Katsuki muses, working up to a steady jog to maintain their increasing speed. “Now I get why All Might is number one and not you.”

He has to duck back to avoid getting roasted by the sudden flare of heat that Endeavour’s flames send curling in his direction.

“Boy, you have some nerve—” the hero begins, jaw clenching sharply as he stomps even faster.

“Touchy, touchy,” Katsuki muses quietly. “You’re very sensitive, Endeavour-san. You must’ve been _real_ unhappy when your golden boy lost the sports festival to a kid who can’t even use his quirk without breaking his bones, huh?”

At this, Endeavour finally skids to a halt, eyes pressing shut with unbridled fury.

“What,” he grunts through teeth clenched so hard a muscle in his jaw jumps, “will it take for you to _stop_. _Talking_.”

Katsuki grins serenely, rocking on his heels with his fingers interlaced at his back.

“It costs you nothing to go back and get that girl her toy,” he says cheerfully.

Endeavour’s eyes snap open, fixing onto Katsuki’s with such intensity that for a brief moment, the teenager thinks he might throttle him.

“You—” he breathes hoarsely. He heaves a deep, rattling breath, eyes absolutely _murderous_.

Then, without another word, the hulking hero whirls around and storms right back toward the flaming house. When he emerges moments later with a slightly ashy but generally unscathed plush bunny clasped in his hands, the woman and her daughter wail with gratitude. 

“Good man,” Katsuki grins, tiptoeing to clap Endeavour’s back heartily (and ignoring the growl he receives in return). “At this rate, you may even catch up to All Might one day!”

The rest of the patrol is tense, but Katsuki does good on his promise and shuts up for the most part.

  
  


That evening when he’s lying in his agency-assigned bedroom, Katsuki receives an oddly threatening text.

  
  


**[Unknown Number]**

I need to speak with you.

6:46 pm

**Me**

??? who the fuck is this

6:49 pm

**[Unknown Number]**

Todoroki.

6:50 pm

  
  
  


**Me**

wtf do u want

6:51 pm

**Me**

loser

6:51 pm

  
  
  


**[Unknown Number]**

Meet me outside.

6:51 pm

  
  
  


**Me**

the fuck??? where???

6:52 pm

  
  


As if answering his question, there’s a sharp rap at Katsuki’s bedroom window that almost has him jumping out of his skin. Through the evening light filtering in, he can just make out the silhouette of a person standing outside the window. He rolls to his feet, stomping over to yank the window open.

“What the fuck, Icy-Hot?” he snarls. “You been watching me sleep or something? I ought to call the fucking cops on your ass!”

Todoroki flushes slightly at the accusation, shrinking back slightly.

“I’m not—” he begins, voice cracking mid-word. He swallows, clearing his throat before shaking his head slightly. “I am not here with indecent intentions,” he stresses.

“That’s what all the perverts say,” Katsuki mutters, making the other teenager splutter.

“I want to know why you chose to intern with my father,” Todoroki says quickly before Katsuki can fluster him any further.

Katsuki blinks.

“You’re asking me why I’m interning with the number two hero?” Katsuki echoes slightly disbelievingly.

Todoroki nods stonily.

“If you have made this decision out of some petty need to provoke me following our—” 

“Dude,” Katsuki says, one part amused and the other incredulous.

“I’m interning with him because he’s the number two hero and I want experience. Full offense, but you’re really _not_ as important as you think you are.”

Todoroki blinks at the words before his cheeks darken subtly.

“Endeavour…” his eyes lower to the ground, and he huffs quietly. “Can we talk about this outside?”

It’s fucking _cold_ , and Katsuki wants to sleep, but he nods his assent anyway, stepping out of the window in his tank top and sweatpants.

He sits at a park bench, and Todoroki stands next to him like a weird brooding asshole.

“Are you. Not gonna sit down?” Katsuki asks slowly.

Todoroki stares at him, and Katsuki clicks his tongue awkwardly.

“My old man has been stuck in second place forever,” the other tells him in lieu of a response. He’s watching Katsuki gravely, with a sort of intensity that makes the blonde realise with despair that this is probably going to be a Long Talk. Fuck, is the asshole going to spill his tragic shounen protagonist origin story now?

“But no matter how much he tries, he can’t surpass All Might. So he moved on to his next plan,” Todoroki says grimly.

Katsuki grimaces. So this _is_ the tragic shounen origin story. He should’ve brought a jacket.

The standing boy raises his head upward and examines the night sky.

“Have you ever heard of quirk marriages, Bakugou?”

Katsuki pauses, head snapping up to stare at the other as his stomach drops at the words. The implication is clear, and suddenly the situation is far less humorous.

“Are you saying...” he trails off hesitantly, already half-knowing the answer.

Todoroki drops his gaze to meet Katsuki’s, eyes serious and heavy before they turn away again. 

“My father is a man with both accomplishments and money,” he murmurs. “To win over my mother’s family, take control of her quirk… it was easy for him.”

Katsuki’s throat goes dry, but Todoroki continues stubbornly, with the air of someone who has not been given much opportunity to speak about this before.

“He’s desperate,” he huffs simply, bitterly. “Trying to fulfil his selfish desires by raising me to be the one to surpass All Might where he couldn’t. He drove my mother insane with his abuse.”

Katsuki isn’t sure what expression he’s displaying on his own face right now, but Todoroki’s is as stony and unreadable as always.

“ _Your left side is unsightly,_ ” he whispers, hand raising to ghost over the raised scar that stretches across half of his face. “those were the words my mother said as she poured boiling water on me.”

The city is quiet. In the distance, there’s the sound of cars on the highway.

Finally, Todoroki turns his gaze to meet Katsuki’s fully. The blonde can do nothing but stare back, mouth glued shut.

“Why are you telling me this,” Katsuki utters numbly. Todoroki sighs, before his shoulders jerk in a half-shrug.

“My father… is not a good man.”

There’s silence for a few more moments before Katsuki realises that the other isn’t planning on saying anything else.

“O...kay,” he says carefully. “That. That really sucks, man. But I also can’t exactly just— _ditch_ this internship with him.”

He winces the moment the words leave his mouth, unsure of how to ideally react but knowing that this is probably the dictionary definition of how _not_ to respond when your classmate decides to unload all their childhood trauma onto you. It’s rude—it probably _surpasses_ rudeness, really, and heads straight into utter asshole territory. But it’s true. He isn’t allowed to drop his internships mid-week without providing a valid reason to Aizawa-sensei, and he has an odd feeling that Todoroki _doesn’t_ want Katsuki airing out his family’s dirty laundry to their homegroup teacher.

Fortunately, the other doesn’t look too offended.

“I just wanted you to know,” his stoic classmate says simply.

“Okay,” Katsuki says again, a little awkwardly. “Well. If that’s all?”

Todoroki just nods curtly and proceeds to turn on his heel and slink off without another word.

Katsuki is left sitting on the bench in his sleepwear, feeling an odd mixture of irritated and guilty.

After a few more minutes of sitting in silence, he decides to head inside and get some sleep, too.

The next morning is more patrolling.

Katsuki, to his own irritation, is having a little difficulty interacting with Endeavour following the night’s conversation. He’d shown minimal reaction while talking to Todoroki, but now that he’s had a night to process exactly what he’d been told, the weight of the situation is sinking in and he feels vaguely nauseous every time he looks at his mentor.

“You’re less… talkative today,” the flame hero notes offhandedly as they walk out of the agency building.

Katsuki doesn’t reply with much more than a grunt, feeling less inclined to hold small talk than before. His lack of reaction earns a brief side glance from Endeavour, but the hero doesn’t follow it up.

Katsuki is too busy mulling over the new information to care from the previous night.

He’s walking next to a man who bought out a woman’s family, abused his own _child_ to fulfil his own selfish desires. Every time he glances up at the hero he’s walking alongside, it feels unfathomable. But then he remembers the haunted, distant look in Todoroki’s eye, the way Endeavour has, in the short time Katsuki has already spent with him, continually pursued villain arrests over civilian rescues, and it doesn’t feel so implausible.

His steps falter until Endeavour is a few paces ahead of him, disgust curling low and acrid in his gut.

The patrol is quiet. He tags back, observes what he has to and doesn’t talk to Endeavour unless it’s absolutely necessary.

It’s when they’re heading back to the agency that Katsuki feels it. An itch at the back of his neck, as if he’s being _watched_. It’s just like the sports festival. He whips his head around, but can’t discern anything odd from the rush of exhausted students and workers making their way home after a long day.

He turns back, but moments later the tingling prickle of his nape returns and he turns around again, eyes narrow.

“What is it?” Endeavour snaps.

Katsuki glances back at the hero, eyeing him for a moment before reluctantly acquiescing.

“Have you noticed anyone watching us?” he asks quietly.

Endeavour turns to give him a somewhat incredulous stare.

“I’m the number two hero, boy. If you don’t like being watched then you made the wrong internship choice.”

Katsuki sighs, not bothering to explain himself.

“Whatever,” he mutters, deciding to let it go. As much as Endeavour is a shitty person, he’s also the number two hero for good reason. If even _he_ hasn’t noticed anything, it’s probably nothing after all.

However, it’s not even moments after this decision that he feels the prickle again, strong enough to have a shiver course down his spine.

He whips around fast enough for his neck to crack, just in time to meet eyes with a man who’s watching him from across the street. He’s familiar, in a distant sort of way, and Katsuki realises with sharp disbelief that he’s the same person who had been staring at Katsuki during the sports festival, following his match with Tokoyami. The man is wearing the same pressed suit, close enough this time for Katsuki to pick out his features; the deep red hair tied back neatly, the glint of amber eyes in the evening light. The man is watching him intently, but this time when Katsuki catches his gaze he physically jolts, eyes widening imperceptibly in shock at being caught.

Katsuki’s own eyes narrow, and he’s turning to stomp towards the man instinctively before he has time to think about it.

The first time, during the sports festival, Katsuki had brushed it off as coincidence. There had been many spectators, and it had been entirely plausible that the guy was just a weird scout for some obscure hero agency. But a _second_ time?

Katsuki’s many things, but an idiot isn’t one of them.

But the moment Katsuki starts to head towards him, the man straightens, finally shifting from his unmoving position as he turns to slip back into the crowd with unexpected agility. This only cements Katsuki’s conclusion that this guy _isn’t_ just some random weirdo, but before he can follow, he’s bodily yanked back by a grip at the neck of his hero costume. Then he’s being turned to face a _very_ irritable-looking Endeavour.

“Where do you think you’re going,” the hero demands sharply. 

Katsuki groans internally, still trying to crane his neck backwards to keep his eye on the man in the suit.

“There was someone—” he grunts, twisting in Endeavour’s iron grip. “I saw someone watching!”

The flame hero’s expression remains unimpressed, if not supremely irritated.

“Pull yourself together,” he rumbles, dangerously low. “When you are interning with me you will not wander off to your heart’s content. Is that understood?”

Katsuki curses under his breath, finally managing to squirm out of the other’s hold. But when he whips around searchingly, the creepy man has already disappeared into the throng of civilians.

“Is that _understood,_ ” Endeavour repeats stonily behind him, completely uncaring of Katsuki’s inner turmoil. 

The blonde curses passionately again.

“Fine,” he spits, defeated.

His skin still tingles sharply, an odd sort of intuitive hum under his skin at being watched that has him on edge the rest of the evening.

  
  


The third day of patrols, there’s still a heavy, hostile tension between Katsuki and Endeavour. They don’t talk for most of the day, beyond barked orders from the hero and grunts of affirmation from the student. For evening they head to patrol in Hosu, where they mostly just walk around and (as per Endeavour’s stupid orders) ignore all the fans’ attempt to talk to them. Katsuki bitterly wonders how the fuck the man even got to second place when it’s so clear he doesn’t give a fuck about the people he saves.

They’re about halfway through the night patrol when Endeavour’s walkie talkie buzzes in. Katsuki perks up at the noise, wondering if they’re finally going to get in on some real fighting.

However, he doesn’t get a chance to find out.

“ _Endeavo...r…!”_ the crackling voice cries over the line. “ _...questin…. ackup... llains sighted…”_

The voice then dissolves into static, before there’s a crackling _boom_ and the line disconnects.

Endeavour, to Katsuki’s begrudging acknowledgement, doesn’t waste a single moment. His expression hardens instantly, shifting from irritable to something more serious and heavy, eyes sharpening with an analytical glint.

“To the main plaza!” the man barks sharply, before storming off. Katsuki follows without questioning it, watching from the corner of his vision as Endeavour jams a few buttons on his walkie talkie before raising it to his mouth.

“This is Endeavour,” he says, words steady and clear despite their brisk pace. “Currently moving towards the centre of the city. Any more details available on the villains?”

“Kamui Woods,” the person on the other side says. “Requesting backup immediately outside the main mall.”

Endeavour grunts out an affirmation, and the two converse in clipped tones as they agree to meet a distance away from the scene to get details before moving in.

As they draw nearer, the screams become audible. Dozens of them, accompanied by huge, crashing noises from the centre of the city. The air grows hotter, and the smell of burning plastic starts to fill the air, acrid and sharp at the back of his throat. The two increase their pace in unspoken synchrony.

They meet Kamui Woods at the edge of one of the main malls.

“Large villain,” he bites out breathlessly from behind his mask-like faceplate. “Unsure of its quirks but definitely has multiple. So far we’re aware of muscle augmentation and an ability to manipulate its tongue into a web-like structure.”

Katsuki’s eyes narrow, thinking back to his USJ experience at the mention of a large villain with multiple quirks. He’s not sure about the tongue thing, but muscle augmentation sounds far too familiar.

“What did it look like?” he cuts in, unflinching despite the way the two heroes whip around to stare at him sharply.

“Who are you?” Kamui Woods bites out. Katsuki opens his mouth to respond, but Endeavour’s already cutting in.

“He’s my intern,” the flame hero grunts.

Kamui doesn’t spare Katsuki a second glance.

“He shouldn’t be here,” he tells Endeavour. “This is too high-risk.”

“What did the villain look like?” Katsuki says again, sharply. Kamui turns to give him an exasperated glare, but the blonde powers on.

“The one you’re talking about. Did it have its brain exposed at the top of its head?”

At this, the hero falters.

“Yes. It did,” he says, watching Katsuki intently now. “Do you know anything about it?”

Katsuki nods quickly.

“We faced something like this at the USJ. It’s likely not the same villain exactly, because the one we faced is probably dead, and as far as I know it didn’t have the tongue manipulation quirk. But it’s definitely of a similar origin.”

He pauses, thinking back to the day of the USJ. The way Shigaraki had ordered around that Noumu so easily, had giddily spoken of its multiple quirks as if showing off a prize pet. He thinks of the empty glint in the Noumu’s eye, completely lacking in consciousness.

“I think the League of Villains is making them. They’re called Noumus,” he says, breathless with his own revelation.

“The USJ…” Kamui echoes quietly. “So you’re… ah. You’re the sports festival winner.”

He’s staring at Katsuki with his full attention now, previously dismissive air gone.

“Do you have any other information you can tell me?”

Katsuki swallows.

“They don’t seem to be intelligent. They follow the orders of Shigaraki—he’s one of the main guys from the League. The one we faced also had the ability to absorb shock. I don’t know if the one we’re facing now has that quirk, too, but it’s better to be wary. It also had the ability to regenerate its flesh after sustaining damage. If there’s another Noumu here… I don’t know how many more there may be,” he mutters grimly, speaking more to himself than the two heroes. 

“All Might barely even won against the one from the USJ.”

There’s silence following his words for a long moment before Kamui Woods lets out an uncharacteristic, low, “shit.”

Katsuki doesn’t blame him.

“What other heroes are on duty in the area?” Endeavour asks, cutting through the terse quiet.

“The Fly,” Kamui grunts. “Manual.” 

He rattles off a few other names, but Katsuki’s brain is caught on the last one.

_Manual?_

Katsuki’s vaguely familiar with the name, but he can’t put a face to it. 

He racks his brain for an answer but comes up empty.

_Manual, Manual_ , he thinks to himself. _Where do I know that name from?_

Then he realises with a jolt: Iida’s internship preference. He remembers hearing about it the day their choices had been due, remembers wondering why the hell Iida had chosen Manual. The guy was some newbie hero, one who hadn’t even broken into the charts yet. Iida had received many offers from higher-ranking heroes than him but refused to elaborate on his choice when asked.

Katsuki, at the time, hadn’t dwelled on it for much longer than a few moments.

He blinks, wondering if he’s going to see the taller boy tonight.

“It’s inevitable,” Endeavour is in the middle of saying when Katsuki tunes back into their conversation.

“Patrols have been upped since Stain’s attacks in Hosu, but we couldn’t have accounted for this. Perhaps the league of villains is working with Stain?”

Katsuki’s brain shorts out almost instantly once again.

 _Hosu,_ he thinks. _Stain’s attacks were in Hosu_.

His heart drops into his stomach.

“Is Manual based in Hosu?” he cuts in rudely, interrupting the heroes’ conversation but too panicked to care.

“Manual?” Kamui echoes. “Yes, if I’m correct he is. His usual patrol route circles around the Hosu area.”

Katsuki is an idiot. He’s an _idiot._ But Iida… he’s an even bigger one.

“I have to go,” he says distantly.

Endeavour and Kamui Woods whip around to stare at him incredulously.

“Now isn’t the time to mess around,” the former says sharply. 

“I know,” Katsuki murmurs, mind racing. “I know, trust me. You two… you need to go stop the Noumu. We’ve been standing around too long.”

He turns, fiddling with his gauntlets to pull them off his arms and shove them behind a dumpster, neutralising them with a button hidden in a side panel so that no one will accidentally set them off.

“What are you doing?” Endeavour demands, too confused to even be angry.

“I won’t need these,” Katsuki mutters. “They’re useless right now.”

He turns, lifting his gaze to meet the two heroes’. 

“The Noumu at the USJ could only be stopped when All Might hit it faster than it could regenerate,” he tells them. “Don’t let it kill anyone.”

With that, he turns around and sprints off into the city, ignoring the calls of the two heroes from behind him.

As he runs, Katsuki thinks back to the articles he’d read.

Of all of Stain’s attacks, more than 60% of his victims had been found in places without many people. Empty corners, dimly lit streets. Ingenium himself had been found in an alleyway, unconscious and alone.

Katsuki starts at the outer edge of the city, as far away from the chaos as possible. It tugs at something deep in his chest to head _away_ from the screaming and noise, from the terrified civilians, but he holds onto the faith that Endeavour and the other heroes will handle it.

From here he checks every alleyway he passes, scans every side street sharply. Despite the chaos that’s happening in the very same city, this area is unsettlingly quiet. There’s no one around, and there are more streetlights flickering than there are working ones.

As he runs, he calls Iida on his phone. The other had given the entire class his phone number at the beginning of the year, giving some stupid, pretentious speech about being a dependable class representative. Katsuki had grumbled but saved the number all the same, along with all of his classmates’ ones, and he’s never been more grateful for it.

Unsurprisingly, Iida doesn’t pick up. The call goes straight to voicemail.

Frustrated, he opts to text the other instead, knowing subconsciously that it’s futile.

  
  


**Me**

don’t do it.

9:29 pm

**Me**

iida where are you

9:29 pm

**Me**

call me back

9:30 pm

  
  
  


The messages are delivered almost instantly, but they aren’t read. He curses, unsurprised but disappointed all the same as he shoves his phone back in his pocket and begins to search the streets again. 

He’s about halfway when he hears a distant cry from one of the side alleys, cutting off almost instantly. The street falls back into silence, but Katsuki is already sprinting towards the source of the noise.

His suspicions are confirmed. When he enters, slowing down to quiet his steps as he grows nearer to the dark alley, he finds Stain’s familiar form, hunched over a crumpled figure on the floor.

Stain looks different like this, scarves fluttering slightly with the night breeze. He’d been creepy the day Katsuki had met him, sure, but now… Now there’s an air of danger about him, dark and insidious in a way that has Katsuki’s heart dropping. There’s a katana at the man’s side, blood dripping off the tip rhythmically and soaking into the gravel below.

Just as Stain raises the katana above the fallen figure, Katsuki steps out of the shadows.

“Stain,” he calls, fighting to keep the desperation out of his voice.

The katana is lowered again, and Stain turns slowly to face him.

“Bakugou Katsuki,” he observes, voice low and tinged with surprise. The recognition is clear in his eyes, but he looks strangely composed.

As Katsuki draws nearer, he can finally see the person lying on the ground. It’s Native; a pro hero who’s been climbing the ranks recently.

“You should leave, Katsuki-kun,” Stain says quietly. He watches, unmoving with his katana still suspended over Native’s chest precariously, as Katsuki steps towards him.

The teenager eyes Native, who’s subtly shaking his head at him.

“Go,” the hero is mouthing desperately, limbs locked unnaturally still at his sides. 

Katsuki swallows, raising his gaze to meet Stain’s calm red eyes.

“What are you doing?” he asks quietly. 

Stain tilts his head, watching him intently.

“I think that’s quite evident, isn’t it?”

Katsuki stares at Native’s prone form, at the slow drip of blood, tipping from the edge of the katana onto the hero’s unmoving chest.

“Why are you doing it?” he murmurs. His hand is trembling imperceptibly at his side, brushing the hilt of the knife hidden at his thigh.

The vigilante—no, the _villain_ —smiles.

“He’s a fake,” he says simply. “Fake heroes… the scum who sully the sanctity of heroism. They have to die.”

The way he’s watching Katsuki has goosebumps rippling up the teenager’s body. It feels like he’s being tested, somehow, like he’s being assessed by his actions right now.

“Stain,” he says slowly. “heroism has no sanctity anymore. It’s an industry. Surely you understand that?”

“Ah,” the villain says. There’s a disappointed lilt in his tone that signals that Katsuki has possibly fucked up majorly. 

“I expected more from you, Katsuki-kun.”

He says it condescendingly, like Katsuki is a puppy who’s just pissed all over his carpet. But the disappointment in Stain’s eyes is tangible, dark and heavy as it weighs on Katsuki’s gaze.

“I expected you to understand. It seems I was mistaken.”

He stares at the blonde for a moment longer, kata unwavering as it stands suspended in mid-air.

“I do,” Katsuki says, maybe a little too quickly. “I do understand.”

Native is still staring at him, wide-eyed and futilely trying to signal him to leave with his eyes alone. Katsuki ignores him, powering on bravely.

“And it sucks. But that’s what it is, now. People become heroes for the wrong reasons, but… this won’t fix it.”

He steps closer shakily, grip closing around the hilt of the knife and shifting it slightly so it’s freed of the barrier of his costume, just in case.

The other hand is held out in front of him cautiously.

“I understand,” he says again. “But you’re only ruining your own life by trying to fix it like this. Killing people will never make it better.”

Stain chuckles, something low and bitter.

“You think I’m a villain,” he muses quietly. Katsuki’s heart drops into his stomach, stopping in his tracks. 

“I—” he begins, unable to argue but unwilling to agree.

“It’s okay,” Stain interrupts him smoothly. “I’m willing to be the villain. I am a necessary evil. If society is to be fixed… I will make the sacrifice.”

Katsuki sucks in a shallow breath, before moving towards him again.

“Stay back,” Stain says sharply, voice suddenly devoid of all the previous mildness.

“Stain,” Katsuki says quietly. His eyes flicker down towards Native, who’s still watching them helplessly.

He holds eye contact with the unmoving hero for a long, long moment before his gaze flickers to Stain, who’s still watching him sharply. Then, he swallows thickly.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs sincerely to Native.

The fallen hero has just enough time to realise what’s about to happen, mouth opening slightly before the hilt of Katsuki’s knife is coming down on his temple, and he slumps back, eyes slipping shut.

Then, Katsuki straightens to meet Stain’s eyes again. The other looks from Native’s unconscious body to Katsuki with open disbelief.

“Chizome,” Katsuki tries again, holding the other’s gaze steadily.

“You can still leave. It’s not too late.”

Stain watches him with open fascination. The coldness from his eyes is gone, replaced with that dissecting look again.

“You would let me go,” he voices, question clear in his tone.

Katsuki tilts his head to look down at Native’s knocked out form, before his grip on his knife loosens slightly.

He’s going to hell, he thinks. He’s done so many fucked up things, but letting go of the man who ruined Ingenium’s hero career would take the cake. He’s not going to be able to look Iida in the eye ever again. But for some reason…

“I would,” he whispers.

Stain’s expression shifts into something unreadable.

“I’ve killed people,” he says quietly, lowering his katana finally in favour of stepping closer to Katsuki.

“And you would let me go anyway?”

And for a brief moment, Katsuki’s not standing in the alleyway anymore. 

The gravel and cracked walls fade away, moonlight morphing to something hazier. Murmured words fill his head like cotton, staticky and distant.

  
  


_“It’s not too late for you.”_

_Grey eyes, corners crinkling._

_A gentle smile, blonde hair shaved clean at the sides._

_An outstretched hand; mercy._

_“Come,”_

_Warmth._

  
  


Katsuki tilts his gaze upward to meet Chizome’s.

“I would,” he says again. The words weigh on him even after they’ve passed his lips, sinking to the bottom of his stomach like stones. But still, he can’t bring himself to regret them.

Stain’s head tilts, coldness slowly seeping from his eyes in favour of something a little heavier, a little more _real_. His katana is lowered to his side, and suddenly, he looks a lot older.

“Most heroes wouldn’t,” he states simply. 

Katsuki swallows a bitter, acrid chuckle.

“I’m not most heroes,” he whispers.

There’s a distant explosion from the other side of the city, and Stain finally tears his gaze away in favour of tucking his katana into the sheath at his back.

Then, he raises his head slightly, appraising Katsuki. The blonde barely fights the urge to shrink back under the weight of his gaze.

“There’s something about you, Bakugou Katsuki…” Stain says finally.

For the briefest of moments, the man’s gaze falters into something that Katsuki could almost kid himself into calling _soft_ , and he opens his mouth to say something more when he’s cut off by the crunch of gravel from the entrance of the alleyway. 

They’re both tensing instantly, backing away from each other as Iida stumbles into the alley.

He has no eyes for Katsuki, glaring straight at Stain.

“A scarf as red as blood,” he breathes, chest heaving with exertion as he slows to a stop in front of them. “carrying blades all over your body… You’re the Hero Killer. Aren’t you? I’ve been chasing you.”

There’s a dark look in Iida’s eyes, cold and almost predatory. His hatred is worn like an ill-fitting cloak, ugly and unfamiliar.

Almost immediately, any trace of softness disappears from Stain’s gaze. 

“Your eyes,” he murmurs icily. “Are you here for vengeance?”

Before Iida can open his mouth to respond, Stain’s hand lifts to the katana strapped at his back again.

“Be careful how you respond. Depending on the situation, I am not opposed to targeting children.”

Katsuki’s heart drops into his stomach, but Iida’s eyes only seem to harden further, lip curling up into a twisted snarl.

“Are you saying,” he spits, hands trembling at his sides, “that I’m not even a _target_?”

There’s something like indignation cutting across his face, wild and furious.

“Iida—” Katsuki tries, unable to tear his gaze away from where Stain has unsheathed his katana once again.  
  


“Stay out of this!” his classmate barks, not even turning to face Katsuki. At this, Stain’s eyes harden further, as if he’s solidified his decision, and he pulls his katana away from his back to hold it at his side. Katsuki’s mouth goes dry, but Iida has already directed his words back at Stain fearlessly.

“I am the younger brother of a hero you attacked. Remember the name, villain. Ingenium. It’s the name of the hero who will defeat you.”

To this, Stain is silent. He stares at Iida for a long moment. And then he throws his head back. And he _laughs_.

The two students watch in silence, Katsuki apprehensive and Iida livid, as the villain laughs for what feels like hours. Finally, when his chuckles subside, he lowers his gaze to meet Iida’s, smile disappearing.

“I see,” he says. “Then die.”

Katsuki doesn’t even have time to open his mouth before his classmate’s expression contorts into one of utter fury.

There’s the rough purr of Iida’s engines firing up, bathing the alley in gold.

“Like I would!” he spits, charging towards Stain. But before he can make impact, faster than Katsuki can follow, Stain is launching over the boy’s head, landing behind him.

“Ingenium,” he muses, completely unruffled. “You’re brothers, then.”

Iida doesn’t even have time to turn to face him before he’s being shoved into the floor, face crunching against gravel. Stain slams a foot down on top of his arm, tilting it until the spiked toe of his boot pierces flesh through the boy’s armour.

“You’re weak,” the villain murmurs conversationally. He leans down, crouching slightly and driving the spike further into Iida’s shoulder. “Your brother was, too. You’re both fakes.”

Then he raises the katana in his hand, and plunges it into Iida’s pinned bicep, earning a guttural yell of pain. Iida twitches under his grip, but the spiked toe digs deeper, and he sinks back against the floor with a grunt.

Stain smirks, pitching forward until he’s pressed to the teenager’s back, lips against his ear as he whispers, “That’s why you’ll die.”

Blood pools under the duo as Stain carelessly yanks his katana out of Iida’s arm with a wet _shlick_ , before raising the bloodstained blade to his lips. A long tongue flicks over steel, and suddenly the boy under Stain is stiffening sharply, limbs locking and eyes widening.

He looks just like Native, Katsuki thinks. His body is trembling imperceptibly, entire body unnaturally stiff and unmoving. The blonde’s gaze flicks over to the open wound in Native’s abdomen, sluggishly oozing blood onto the ground.

“Your quirk,” he breathes. Stain’s gaze snaps to him, something like satisfaction rising up in the depths of his expression.

“Correct,” he says. 

Katsuki ignores the acrid nausea that rises in his throat at the way Stain looks at him, in favour of eyeing the blood that lines the man’s katana, some dried and crusted and other parts fresher and still dripping.

It’s the blood, he realises. He hadn’t arrived in time to see when Native had been immobilised, but Iida had been rendered motionless the moment the blood had met Stain’s lips. He must need to ingest someone’s blood to paralyse them. But surely it’s not permanent? 

Stain is still watching him curiously, and he swallows under the gaze.

“How long does it last?” he asks finally. He’s not stupid enough to expect an answer, but it’s evident that Stain’s got some type of soft spot for him, for some stupid fucking reason. Worth a shot, he guesses.

He’s not disappointed.

“It depends on the person’s blood,” the man divulges easily, drawing circles over Iida’s armour with his finger and smudging crimson over white. “Take a guess.”

“Blood type,” Katsuki translates numbly, earning an approving nod.

He doesn’t have time to say any more when another figure arrives at the mouth of the alley.

“Endeavour,” Katsuki breathes. This is quite possibly the worst timing possible, but something deep in the blonde’s stomach unfurls slightly as he realises he’s no longer alone with Stain. A moment after this thought, he berates himself mentally; Endeavour isn’t much of a step up, in terms of morality. But nonetheless, he can’t help the relief that courses through his body at the sight of the flame hero.

“Bakugou,” the man huffs. “You are my responsibility during this internship. You are not at liberty to leave when you please, especially during such high—”

“We don’t have time for this.” Katsuki interrupts impatiently, turning to glance back anxiously. Surely Endeavour knows better than to lecture him when Stain is—

Katsuki’s heart drops. 

Stain is gone. 

All that’s left where he’d been standing moments ago is whirling dust. Iida and Native still lay immobilised at the side.

“Fuck,” the blonde breathes.

“What?” Endeavour demands. Then the hero’s gaze falls to the two unmoving figures.

The alley is eerily quiet in Stain’s absence, and even with the flames of the bigger man’s costume bathing the entire alley in orange, it still feels _cold_ , somehow. The hairs at the back of Katsuki’s neck prickle, and his hand curls around his knife instinctively.

“Come,” Endeavour barks, clearly not having the same reservations. “We need to move them.”

“Wait—” Katsuki says.

He doesn’t get the opportunity to finish his sentence, because moments later Endeavour is sent flying into the wall with a sickening _crack_.

He doesn’t get back up.

Stain straightens from where he’s hunched over the hero’s unconscious form, rolling his neck out slowly.

“Thank you for the distraction, Katsuki-kun,” he muses lightly. “That was far easier than I’d anticipated.”

Katsuki’s heart starts to pound in his ears. He’s currently trapped with a villain who just took out the number two hero with _one hit_. 

And it doesn’t seem like Stain is going to be letting this go anytime soon. Before everything had gone to shit, when it was just the two of them talking, he’d had hope. With the way Stain had looked at him, dissecting and _warm_ somehow, he’d almost believed the man could listen to him. But after Iida had arrived, the man seemed to slam his walls shut again, eyes growing cold and hard.

Still keeping one hand curled around his blade, Katsuki uses his other to dig in his pocket for his phone.

Then, clumsily, he manages to unlock it. He’s unable to tear his gaze from Stain’s long enough to get a good look, but he manages to send a GPS link to one of the contacts at the top of his list.

Distantly, he prays it got sent to an actual hero, and not someone random, like his mother. He has no doubt that the woman would probably kick Stain’s ass or die trying, and he’s not sure which of those possibilities is more terrifying.

“Now,” Stain sighs, “I kill them.”

Katsuki is just starting forward when he’s interrupted by a shuffle from the side of the alley. Getting interrupted seems to be a common theme for him tonight, it seems.

“My brother,” Iida spits, trembling from his spot but still unable to move, “is paralysed from the waist down because of you. He can’t be a hero anymore.”

“Hm,” Stain murmurs, tilting his head to examine the other. 

“Tensei was… an excellent hero!” Iida grits out. “There was no reason for you… for you to…”

He falls back on the gravel limply, eyes shining with unshed tears. 

“I’ll kill you,” he whispers finally, hollowly. “I’ll kill you.”

Katsuki swallows, mouth suddenly feeling dry. Beyond the sheer despair in Iida’s gaze, there’s sincerity. He says the words like he means them, with enough conviction that the blonde doesn’t doubt for a moment that he’ll do it for real. 

And there’s something about that fact that’s utterly terrifying to Katsuki.

Stain seems to pick up on the paralysed boy’s emotions, too, because his lip curls into an ugly scowl.

“Save them first,” he growls, eyes stony as he gestures to Endeavour and Native’s unconscious bodies. “Reflect on yourself. Heroes work to save others. Giving in to the hatred before you… trying to fulfil your own desires… you are the furthest thing from what a hero should be.”

The man spares Iida one last disgusted look, before turning on Endeavour’s slumped form.

“Him first,” he mutters. “I have seen enough… I have heard enough to know that he is the worst of them all.”

At the words, a sick, half-hysterical laugh bubbles up in Katsuki’s chest. They don’t pass his lips, dying in his throat at the irony of the statement. Stain probably doesn’t know the half of what Endeavour has actually done. He’s probably talking about Endeavour’s shitty treatment of civilians, or his prioritisation of arrests over saving.

The man probably doesn’t realise exactly how right he is in this moment, and Katsuki thinks, quite despicably, that if anyone were to deserve to die at Stain’s hands, it would be Endeavour. It’s a grim idea; one that he tries (and fails) to banish from his mind immediately after it rises.

And then Todoroki Shouto sprints into the alleyway, chest heaving and puffs of icy, frost-tinted air leaving his mouth as he skids to a stop.

 _Great_ , Katsuki thinks. It seems, judging by the phone clenched tightly in Todoroki’s hand, that he was the one that received Katsuki’s location link. Just in time to witness his father’s murder, too.

Lovely.

“Endeavour’s son,” Stain notes, amusement colouring his tone. “Just in time for the show.”

“What?” Todoroki demands, fists already swirling with sharp coolness.

Then his gaze falls on the figure that Stain is leaning over. Almost immediately, understanding flickers in his gaze, and he straightens, hands uncurling at his sides.

“You’re going to kill my old man,” he says quietly. His expression is unreadable, but there’s something dark in it, akin to Iida’s expression, that has Katsuki shrinking away instinctively.

“I am,” Stain says, observing him curiously.

Todoroki opens his mouth, and then closes it again. His eyes cloud with something heavy, before his lips thin, pressing together tightly until they turn white.

“Do it,” he breathes finally.

Katsuki’s jaw drops.

At the words, Stain actually straightens in surprise, eyes widening. Then, a grin spreads across his cheeks, almost crazed.

“You want him dead!” he cries, delighted. “You want your father dead!”

Todoroki looks apprehensive at the almost fervent joy that seems to have overtaken Stain, but his eyes remain serious.

“With all my heart,” he responds gravely.

Stain chuckles, wiping a tear of mirth from the corner of his eye.

“So be it,” he says, still smiling wildly as he turns back to Endeavour, unsheathing his katana. 

Todoroki watches, unmoving and almost enraptured in his anticipation.

“Are you seriously going to let him do this?” Katsuki whispers incredulously, struggling to process the fact that he’s the only one in this damn alleyway who _doesn’t_ want to commit murder.

His classmate turns dark, intent eyes on him.

“Yes,” he says simply. 

Katsuki staggers away from him slightly, feeling unease rise in his stomach.

It’s odd, how he’d almost been _willing_ to see Endeavour die mere minutes ago, yet now he can’t fathom it. 

Seeing the man’s own son, standing in the flesh and wishing it so desperately, makes bile rise in the back of his throat.

“You can’t,” he says.

He’s speaking to Todoroki, but the panic filling his chest makes his words louder, and Stain straightens.

“Why not?” he asks carelessly. “When even the man’s own flesh and blood wants him dead, what reason do I have to spare him?”

Katsuki opens his mouth, before closing it again. His heart pounds against his ribs.

“You can’t,” he says again, this time to Todoroki. “Are you really going to let this happen?”

Todoroki’s gaze, when it returns to him this time, feels almost accusatory.

“You know why the answer is yes,” he says sharply.

The blonde swallows under the two heavy gazes that are pressing into him.

From the ground, Iida watches the scene in utter confusion, staring at Todoroki like he’s a complete stranger.

Finally, Katsuki straightens slightly, grip tightening around the hilt of his knife.

Then, slowly, he takes a step. And another. Stain watches him intently, unmoving as Katsuki moves to stand over Endeavour’s body, placing himself between the unconscious pro hero and the two who want him dead.

“You can’t kill him,” he says. “I won’t let you.”

At his side, his knife is unsheathed fully, held low but ready in front of him.

The tension that rises in the air is almost palpable; Stain looks disappointed, and Todoroki so betrayed that Katsuki can’t meet his eyes.

“I see,” Stain murmurs, looking irritated but wholly unsurprised by the development. There’s a bitter resignation in his eyes when he looks at Katsuki, now.

“Please,” Katsuki tries desperately, knife trembling imperceptibly in his grip. “you can still leave.”

The man shakes his head, scarves swaying slightly with the movement.

“They must die,” he says simply. “The hero, and the boy, too.”

With the words, he gestures towards a still-immobilised Tenya.

“You have proven yourself worthy to me, Katsuki. I ask that you do not force me to kill you, too.”

Katsuki shakes his head, loosening his grip on his blade and sucking in a deep breath. His arm stills, finally, knife held low and firm. Todoroki watches the exchange, his betrayal somewhat dulled with the shock that Stain seems to know Katsuki.

“You’d kill a boy?” the blonde asks in lieu of addressing whatever the _fuck_ that last part had meant. He’s not sure what traits he possesses that he’d qualify as _worthy_ in Stain’s eyes, and he’s not sure that he wants to know, either.

“You’d kill a teenager?”

Stain sighs, jaw flexing. 

“If I must,” he mutters, looking very put-upon, as if he’s being _forced_ to go on his regular murder sprees. “This one has proven to me that he is a fake.”

“I never said he did the right thing,” Katsuki says. At this, Iida makes a noise of protest from the side, but no one gives him a second glance. “I think he’s an idiot for coming out here just to seek revenge. But he doesn’t deserve to _die_ for it! He’s just a stupid kid!”

Stain’s lips curl into a snarl, completely unphased by Katsuki’s desperate reasoning.

“He’s unworthy of being called a hero,” he spits poisonously.

“Maybe.” Katsuki admits, with enough ease that actual hurt flickers across Iida’s face. Katsuki ignores it in favour of powering on stubbornly, distantly surprised at how little remorse he feels over the cold dismissal.

“Maybe now. But what about a year from now? Or three? You can’t judge someone’s potential over a stupid mistake they made when they were _fifteen_ —people change! Can you honestly tell me you’re the same person you were twenty years ago?”

At the words, Stain finally falters, katana lowering slightly as his expression shutters, turning unreadable. It’s all the confirmation Katsuki needs to solidify a theory he’s been mulling over the past few months, one he’s seen floating around the internet during his research into Stain.

“You of all people know how people change,” he breathes, tentatively, “don’t you, Stendhal.”

Stain’s katana falls. His entire body stiffens, gaze widening at the name the moment it leaves Katsuki’s lips.

“How did you…” the man breathes, suddenly looking ashen. His eyes stare somewhere to the side of Katsuki, as if he’s looking straight through him and into something else entirely.

“It’s not too late,” the blonde tries again, quieter this time, as if sensing the chink that’s finally been revealed in the other’s impenetrable armour. Stain looks smaller like this, jaw trembling ever-so-slightly. “You still have time.”

“I am different,” the adult murmurs, more to himself than Katsuki. “but I am a necessary evil. To preserve the betterment of society…”

“That’s what you want?” Katsuki asks. “A society without fake heroes?”

Stain’s shaky gaze turns to him.

“Yes,” he breathes.

“But how many worthy heroes do you even know of, by your standards?” Katsuki demands.

The man swallows. 

“Two,” he says. 

“All Might,” his eyes bore into Katsuki’s, “and you.”

_Me._

At this, Katsuki falters, taking a step back at the swirling emotions in Stain’s eyes.

_Me?_

Any part of him that would have felt pride at the declaration, at being put on All Might’s level, is absent. All he can think about is how absolutely _delusional_ the man before him is, and wonder what must’ve happened to disillusion him so.

He fights down the hysterical, disbelieving giggle that rises in his chest, wrestling his expression into a more neutral one lest it betray the absolute incredulity that he’s feeling right now.

“That’s not enough,” he says carefully. “You realise that, don’t you?”

“I do,” Stain says.

“But it’s a necessary sacrifice—”

Katsuki is _so sick_ of this man’s bullshit. Spewing words like _necessary_ and _worthy_ like it’s his job. Half of him is utterly disgusted at the lengths Stan is willing to go to push his sick, twisted ideals, but the other part feels nothing but hollow, bitter pity.

“ _What sacrifice?_ ” he demands. “The civilian lives that’ll be lost when there are no heroes left to save them? Is that a _necessary sacrifice_ to you?”

Even Todoroki takes a step back with wide eyes at the vitriol in Katsuki’s voice this time, clearly unused to seeing the blonde lose his temper.

Katsuki sucks in a deep, shuddering breath, closing his eyes tightly for a long moment.

“Why does intention matter,” he continues, a tad calmer this time, “when lives are being saved? At the end of it all, a life is a life, is it not?”

For the first time of the night, Stain is rendered completely speechless.

“Why does it _matter_?” Katsuki pushes on, distress making his voice strained. “Who gave you the right to fucking choose?!”

He probably looks hysterical, a look of crazy frustration overtaking his features as he paces back and forth in the alley restlessly.

Finally, he spins to face Stain once again, red meeting red.

“Look me in the eye,” he spits, “and tell me you would rather let innocent civilians _die_ than have them be saved by someone who doesn’t fit your arbitrary image of heroism.”

The adult gapes at him, crimson eyes wide and shaken.

“Say it!” Katsuki demands. “Tell me you value your morals over actual human life!”

For a long, terse moment, the alleyway is completely silent.

Todoroki and Iida stare at Katsuki in open surprise, while Stain looks stricken. Iida has propped himself up to his elbows now, seemingly finally free of his paralysis but still too shocked by the situation to make any move to stand.

Then, before he can receive an answer, there are sirens in the distance.

There’s confusion for a moment before the noise registers, and then Stain is stiffening instinctively.

The man’s gaze flickers to Endeavour for the briefest of moments, and Katsuki tracks the movement instantly.

“It’s not too late,” the blonde says again, one last time. “This is all the leeway I can give you, Stain. It’s not too late for you.”

Stain, to Katsuki’s utter surprise, actually sheathes his katana after a moment’s hesitation. His expression is closed-off, lips pressed tightly together.

Iida’s eyes widen as he realises what Katsuki is saying, and he struggles sluggishly to rise to his feet.

“You can’t let him go!” he cries, staring at the blonde in desperate disbelief.

Katsuki averts his gaze, guilt pooling in his stomach.

He can’t imagine the grief Iida is feeling right now at the loss of his brother. 

But all Katsuki can see right now, burned into the back of his eyelids, is an outstretched hand and kind grey eyes.

“Go,” he says quietly, glaring at the ground.

This earns a cry of protest from Iida, and a quiet, unreadable noise from Todoroki.

Katsuki ignores them both.

From the corner of his eye, the blonde sees Stain turn to him and nod once.

Then the man is crouching low and launching into the air, leaving dust and blood-soaked gravel in his wake.

When the police finally arrive, there’s chaos. All five of them are loaded into the back of an ambulance, medical professionals fussing over their injuries quietly.

And now, without the threat of imminent death looming over them, there’s nothing left to shield Katsuki from the weight of his two classmates’ relentless, accusatory stares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so!!! i am back!!! i hadn't realised how long it'd been until i checked and saw that the last update had been around four months ago? so sorry for the wait y'all but law school has been kicking my ass :')
> 
> anyways i finally finished my first year and got some time to get out another chapter!! this one took so long mainly because of a combination of the amount of research it took, the sheer length of it, and also just some general stress i had about uploading it,,, the hosu arc is one that a lot of wonderful authors have done beautifully so i was a little anxious about writing it,,,, i'm still not 100% happy with the results but alas, i didn't want to put off updating for any longer. stain's characterisation is a little different from canon,,, anyways i'm sorry it kinda sucks but yeah
> 
> bonus points for anyone who can figure out what/who that flashback was about, i know i kept it pretty vague :^)  
> i also slipped a very vague half-reference to bbc merlin in there so BONUS bonus points for anyone who can pick out THAT one.
> 
> anyways, i hope you're all coping well with the pandemic! stay safe and hydrated!!
> 
> lol this note got pretty long but anyways if you're still reading this, comment who your favourite LoV villain is and why! i'm curious :D


	9. nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to 2021!! i hope you're all doing wonderfully, and apologies for the two month wait on this one!!
> 
> a bit of filler, and this chapter marks the beginning of the fun stuff :)
> 
> warnings for a very brief mention of blood in this chapter! i think that's about it, but if i miss anything, apologies, and please let me know so i can add it up here!!

“Why did you let him go.”

_Ah._

They’ve been sitting in the hospital room for all of fifteen minutes when Iida hits him with the question.

Honestly, he’s surprised the taller boy had even held out for as long as he did.

After the checkups had finished, the three teenagers had been left to ‘recuperate’ in the hospital, which Katsuki thinks is more than a little stupid considering that of all of them, Iida is the only one with any injuries. But protocol is protocol, so he sulks on his stupid hospital bed and pretends not to notice the fact that Todoroki and Iida have been glaring holes into the side of his head since they left Hosu. The two of them aren’t acknowledging each other either, but it seems that for whatever reason, they’ve decided to ignore whatever qualms they have with one another in favour of ganging up on Katsuki.

At the very least, none of them have been called in to give statements or be questioned yet. The paramedics said that wouldn’t be happening until they were discharged from the hospital, so as of yet his two companions have not been given the chance to tell the police exactly how cozy Katsuki had been getting with the Hero Killer.

Small victories, right?

“Well,” he begins awkwardly, refusing to look at either of his classmates. “That is a great question, actually.”

“Then answer it,” Todoroki cuts in coldly from his other side.

Katsuki grimaces at the icy tension that has settled over the room.

“Hm,” he stalls, fiddling with a loose strand on his coarse hospital bed sheet. “It’s kind of complicated.”

“Uncomplicate it.” Iida spits. “I fail to think of anything you could possibly say which would justify willingly harboring a known _villain_.”

“Well,” Katsuki shoots back, a tad indignant, “it’s not like I’m the only one in the wrong here.”

He turns to glare at Iida. 

“ _You_ went off to fucking _murder_ him without a license or support, and _you_ —” he whips around to point at Todoroki, “wanted to let Stain kill the number two hero!”

“He’s my _father_ ,” Todoroki snaps back, and Katsuki bites down a hysterical giggle. “Right. Your _father_ —you wanted to let Stain kill your father. That’s _so_ much better.”

Todoroki’s expression contorts, and he pushes up from the bed with a vicious snarl.

“You _know_ why!” he spits.

And Katsuki falters, because amidst the fury, there’s a hint of hurt in Todoroki’s voice. It’s the same betrayal that had painted his features in the alleyway, when Katsuki had stood in front of Endeavour’s unconscious body. And Katsuki—he doesn’t _like_ Todoroki, but he knows how hard it would have been for him to open up about this, and he doesn’t want the idiot to think he doesn’t _care_ or something.

“I know,” he placates quickly, deflating. “I’m not saying I don’t understand. You had your reasons.”

He turns around to meet Iida’s dark, hollowed out gaze, and adds on a quieter, “both of you.”

He sighs, softly, before tilting his head back until it hits the wall.

“But I had my reasons too. And I’m not really under any obligation to discuss them with you guys, considering everything.”

He gives them both a pointed look, under which they seem to finally deflate. The message is clear: after everything that has happened tonight, Todoroki and Iida really don’t have any right to chastise Katsuki for what he did. It seems they’re all equally fucked up.

“Okay,” Todoroki relents, sitting back down slowly. “But you’re not… working with him?” 

Katsuki can’t help the somewhat hysterical chuckle that slips out of his mouth.

“I don’t even fucking know the guy,” he mutters wearily. 

He doesn’t, not really. He’d met him once before, had talked to him for all of five minutes in a shitty back-alley convenience store.

_So why did he let him go?_

He can attempt to rationalise it all he wants, can argue that protocol indicates he shouldn’t have engaged in combat or tried to stop him in any way, but… he had willingly let him go.

Katsuki knows that if it had been any other villain in Stain’s shoes, he wouldn’t have given a second thought to protocol. 

So why the _fuck_ did Katsuki let Stain go?

He purses his lips, deciding to shove the disconcerting thought to the back of his mind lest it give him a migraine from stress.

  
  


About ten minutes after the conversation—ten minutes of blessed silence, to Katsuki’s relief—Iida pushes himself up from the hospital bed, tearing the IV cannula from his elbow carelessly.

“You probably shouldn’t do that,” Katsuki says mildly.

“I have to call my brother,” the taller boy replies gravely. He sounds far more personable towards the two of them than he has been all night, but it’s a small victory when considering the harrowed, weighed-down look in his eyes as he leaves the room.

Not even a minute after the door is sliding shut behind him, Todoroki is turning to face Katsuki again.

“Why didn’t you let him kill my father?” he asks. 

Katsuki wants to repeat the same answer he’d given him before, but there’s something different about the way the boy says it. Where before he’d been accusatory, voice venomous and _cold_ , now he just sounds tired. 

“I wouldn’t have let him do it no matter what. The fact that it was Endeavour didn’t really change anything for me.”

Katsuki’s half-hearted when he says it, not really paying attention to the conversation, which is why he jolts when Todoroki visibly flinches at the words.

“It… didn’t change anything?” he echoes, a crestfallen look in his eyes.

 _Shit_.

Katsuki fucking _sucks_ at this.

“No!” he backtracks hastily. “That’s not what I— _shit._ ”

He straightens, turning his body to face Todoroki fully and look him in the eye.

“I didn’t mean that,” he says seriously, suddenly feeling overwhelmingly guilty. The other looks like a kicked puppy, and shit, Todoroki is annoying as all hell but even Katsuki isn’t _that_ much of an asshole. “Sorry. I just—I suck at words.”

He sucks in a deep breath, trying to sort his thoughts out before he speaks this time.

“What I meant,” he begins carefully, “is that I don’t think I would have let myself stand by and allow Stain to kill anyone. But I’m not—ugh. Fuck, man, what I’m trying to say is that the shit Endeavour did to you is terrible. I’ll be honest, when Stain first went after him, I wasn’t gonna do anything. I wanted to let him die.”

At the admission, Todoroki seems to relax infinitesimally, which in turn makes Katsuki relax too.

“We’re hero students,” Katsuki continues slowly, with a measured tone. “That means that we have to be ready to put aside our feelings and save people.”

 _Hypocrite_ , his mind screeches at him. _Was ‘saving’ Stain worth forgiving the dozens he’d killed? You’re a fake._

He ignores that particular thought with no small amount of difficulty, attempting to focus on the conversation at hand.

“I understand that you want him dead, and honestly, I don’t blame you. But you’re angry right now, and I don’t think you would be entirely happy with your decision in the future if you’d let Endeavour die now.”

Todoroki opens his mouth, but Katsuki cuts him off before he can interject.

“And I _know_ that it’s not my place to make that decision for you,” he says quickly. The other boy’s mouth snaps shut again. “I know. But shit like that? It ruins your life, man. That blood on your hands—it doesn’t go away.”

 _Red on his ledger_ , his mind supplies randomly, making absolutely zero sense once again.

 _Shut up_ , he shoots back sharply. _I don’t have the time for your cryptic bullshit_.

Out loud, he says, “I’m sorry for interfering.”

It’s tough to get the words out, mostly because he dislikes both apologising and Todoroki in equal measures.

It’s worth it, though, because Todoroki no longer seems willing to cut in or argue with him.

Instead, he sighs quietly.

“I’m being selfish,” he says. “I have no right to be angry at you for saving someone’s life.”

He sounds utterly defeated, and Katsuki bites his lip.

“I don’t blame you,” he says again, seriously. “The way you acted… I’m not gonna lie, it was fucked up. But after all that asshole did to you, I understand why you wanted him dead.”

The corner of Todoroki’s lip twitches upward slightly at the insulting title, and Katsuki smirks back at him for a moment before letting his expression harden again.

“There are other ways to win against him,” he tells Todoroki meaningfully. “Ways that don’t involve you condoning murder or suppressing half of your quirk and nearly giving yourself hypothermia.”

“How?” the other asks, almost desperate.

“Live your life,” Katsuki answers simply. “I won’t tell you to go to an adult about what he’s done or anything, because I can’t lie to you and say that you’ll win that fight right now. Our society is corrupt and Endeavour has a stupidly and undeservedly solid reputation. But just… enjoy high school. Be happy, make friends. If he wants you to be his stupid, perfect fucking pet project, then show him you’re more than that. Show him that he doesn’t have his claws in you anymore.”

There’s silence as the other processes the words, expression pensive.

“Friends…” he echoes softly. “I’ve never had one of those.”

There’s a beat of silence, before he lifts his gaze to meet Katsuki’s.

“Are we friends?” Todoroki’s expression is softer than usual, eyes wide and searching.

“Nope,” Katsuki says flatly. “Good luck with that, though.”

He may have had a moment with the asshole or whatever, but his civility only goes so far.

Without another word, he pushes off his bed and sidles off in search of food.

  
  


Katsuki doesn’t find food. Instead, in a disappointing turn of events, he finds Endeavour.

Or, to be more precise, he accidentally walks past the geezer’s hospital room, makes eye contact with him through the open doorway, and keeps walking with full intentions to pretend it hadn’t happened. 

“Bakugou,” Endeavour calls, promptly ruining that plan. “Come in.”

Katsuki groans, turning on his heel and stomping inside the otherwise empty room with a petulant scowl. He may have saved Endeavour’s life tonight, but he’s still far from his biggest fan, and his conversation with the asshole’s son just a minute ago has him feeling a little uneasy.

“Hello,” he says flatly.

“What happened tonight?” the hero asks, a hint of frustration in his voice. “The hospital personnel refuse to tell me anything.”

Katsuki rocks back on his heels, smacking his lips loudly. 

“If they’re refusing to tell you anything, I’m getting a feeling I shouldn’t tell you anything either.”

This earns a sharp glare. 

“I’m the number two hero.” 

The entitlement in the tone is not lost on Katsuki, and it has something sharp and acrid curling in his gut.

 _You’re a fucking child abuser who deserves to rot in hell_ , his brain supplies. He’s always known that hero society is corrupt, has been constantly aware of the implications of such a system, but the prospect that someone like Endeavour is allowed to walk around playing the hero without repercussions is nauseating up close.

Katsuki bites back the sharp retorts that rise to his lips, holding his breath for a long moment. Then, he walks over to the empty bed opposite Endeavour’s, and drops onto it heavily, lying with his back flat to the neatly-made sheets and his gaze fixed to the ceiling.

“Your kid turned up,” he says instead. “After you were knocked out.”

“I’m aware that my son was involved, although I do not know the specifics.” 

Endeavour’s tone is clipped and stiff.

“I’ll tell you the specifics,” Katsuki mutters, suddenly feeling more than a little petty. Part of him is still feeling guilty for his misunderstanding with Todoroki, and he wants to _hurt_ Endeavour on his classmate’s behalf. It’s an odd feeling, the protectiveness that surges up in his chest.

“The _specifics_ are that your kid got to the scene, took one look at Stain standing over your body, and told him to go ahead and kill you.”

He tilts his head back until it dangles off the foot of the bed and Endeavour’s upside-down face comes into view. The hero’s expression has shuttered into something impenetrable, but the shock is clear in his eyes, in the sudden stiffness that lines his posture.

“You’re lying.” The flames surrounding the hero seem to flare up, burning bright with his anger.

“I’m not,” Katsuki says quietly, lifting his head until all he can see is the ceiling again, bland and white.

“And I don’t blame him one damn bit.”

The room lapses into silence. Part of him is wondering if telling Endeavour was a wise decision, especially considering that he now knows what the man is capable of doing to Todoroki. It’s a grim possibility that the asshole could take it out on his son, but Katsuki… he knows Endeavour won’t. He doesn’t know _how_ he knows, especially considering the fact that he only met him a few days ago, but he just has a feeling. And if there’s one thing he’s learned over the past fifteen years, it’s that he’s better off following his intuitions; they’re rarely wrong.

Katsuki lays there, staring at the white plaster for what feels like ages before it becomes clear that Endeavour isn’t going to speak.

With a quiet sigh, the blonde pushes up from the bed and trudges towards the door. As he leaves, he turns back for the briefest of moments. Endeavour’s flames have died down into embers, leaving him looking smaller, _frailer_ in his pressed white bed, and the last thing Katsuki sees before the door slides shut behind him is the hollowed-out look in the man’s eyes.

Eventually he finds a vending machine and buys a bottle of barley tea with the battered IC card he keeps in his belt pouch for emergencies. He’s lucky he’s still wearing his hero costume; Iida had been changed into a hospital gown, but because Katsuki and Todoroki weren’t injured, they were left in their own clothes.

He ambles around for a while, sipping at his tea, but the hospital is quite busy with the victims of tonight’s villain attack, so rather than hanging around the lobby any longer, he returns to his shared room. Todoroki and Iida are sitting with Manual and another man who, upon closer inspection, seems to be an oversized, anthropomorphic dog. The former two are standing next to each other, which is a far cry from the awkward, tense distance they’d been maintaining with one another earlier. It seems they’ve sorted things out.

The three stand in stiff silence as the beagle-headed stranger introduces himself as the Chief of Police. They give their statements together, opting for a half-truthful version of the story.

“You didn’t fight him?” the Chief, Tsuragamae, asks skeptically.

“He escaped,” Katsuki emphasises.

“It was very traumatic,” Todoroki adds flatly, tilting his head. The boy lies with concerning ease when faced with a figure of such authority, but Katsuki decides not to question it for his own sanity. “We’re just first-year hero students. We thought it would be best to simply follow protocol and not engage in combat.”

Iida, on the other hand, has reluctantly conceded and gone along with their plot but still lacks the nerve to outright lie. Instead, he simply nods vigorously with their words, steadily reddening as they pile on each evasive statement.

In the end, Tsuragamae lets them go. He looks somewhat suspicious, but obviously lacks the evidence or grounds to press any further.

Native, they’re informed, does not remember enough about the events of the night to provide much helpful information. He’s quite disoriented—too disoriented to remember how Katsuki had struck him in the head and knocked him out—this is a fact that makes Katsuki exhale in relief, before he immediately feels overwhelmingly guilty for doing so. 

Eventually, the three students are released to go home with one last medical check, Iida covered in bandages and the other two awkwardly ambling along in their hero costumes. 

The issues of the night are resolved, just like that. The events aren’t mentioned on the news, drowned out by the media coverage of the Noumu attacks. Katsuki, along with the others involved, is under strict instructions not to mention what happened in the alley, lest public confidence in the hero community be diminished. Apparently, Tsuragamae says, it would be creating more unnecessary panic amongst civilians where they’re already upset about the Noumus. So as far as the public is concerned, Stain was never even sighted.

It’s… underwhelming, in an odd way.

To have been through something like that only to come out of it a few hours later and have to act like it never happened.

Nonetheless, the internships continue with a relatively unsettling lack of activity following that night.

Endeavour delegates Katsuki to desk work with his sidekicks, which the blonde is somewhat grateful for. The flame hero has been oddly subdued following their conversation in the hospital, noticeably avoiding any interaction with Katsuki and generally looking very angsty and brooding.

It’s fine, though, because Katsuki is happy to sit behind a desk for the remainder of the week—Hosu was more than enough field experience for him.

Before he knows it, he’s on his way back to school again.

It’s a little jarring, having to return to class and hear all his classmates gush about their internship experiences and how much they _learned,_ when all he can remember about his own experience is the fact that it has left him a probable accomplice to serial murder. 

Fun.

He’s slumped at his desk during homegroup, contemplating this particularly depressing realisation when there’s a tap to his shoulder.

“Hey, man.”

It’s Kaminari. 

Katsuki has half a mind to just ignore him, still somewhat pissed over the sports festival, but there’s a look in the other’s eyes that makes him decide to hear him out.

“What,” he says instead, exercising what little self-restraint he has.

“Well,” Kaminari says, chewing at the inside of his lip.

“I, uh. I’m not sure if you know about what happened at Hosu last week…?”

Katsuki tilts his head in affirmation, gifting his fidgeting classmate a flat stare.

“Okay,” Kaminari’s voice wavers a little in nervousness, sensing Katsuki’s impatience. “Well, I was, uh, I wasn’t directly involved. Because the heroes said it was too dangerous for me and all. But I watched most of it, and I—”

Kaminari raises a hand to scratch his head awkwardly, looking everywhere but at Katsuki.

“There were a lot of female heroes there,” he says finally. “And I realised while watching them that they—they work really hard. And they’re strong as hell. And I knew that already, but I—it made me realise how uncool I’ve been lately. Especially with the sports festival.”

Katsuki actually blinks at this, tilting back in his chair to appraise the other. He’d been pissed about the sports festival, having shoved it to the back of his mind as a reason to dislike Kaminari. But he’d never considered that the idiot would get his shit together this quickly. It’s a start, he guesses.

“Okay,” he says slowly. There’s an unspoken question hanging in the air of ‘ _and what?’_

The other grimaces at his glare, but, to Katsuki’s begrudging respect, doesn’t flinch away.

“I’m gonna go apologise to the girls,” he says quickly. “I just came to let you know. And—well, apologise to you, too, I guess. You shouldn’t have had to keep me in line but you did anyway. And I appreciate that. I’m gonna work on it so you won’t have to do it again.”

Katsuki bites his lip to fight back a smirk.

 _Okay_ , he thinks to himself privately. _Maybe the dumbass isn’t half bad_.

“Whatever,” he says in lieu of a proper response, mostly because he’d rather die than verbally affirm his approval.

Kaminari gives him one last sheepish smile before turning and heading straight to Yaoyorozu’s desk.

Huh.

Classes pass by quickly, with the announcement of the impending term exams weighing over them. In preparation for these, most of their teachers begin to focus on outlining revision schedules, and explaining what the exams will involve.

By the time lunch arrives, the entire class is buzzing with nervousness. Somehow, Kirishima manages to wrangle Katsuki into joining his stupid clique at the cafeteria, although not without much difficulty.

He slumps down at the table, scowling into his tray as Ashido and Kirishima chatter over his head.

“Oi, where’s Kami?” Sero asks curiously, craning his head to survey the packed cafeteria.

His gaze catches on the yellow-haired boy in question, who’s collecting food at Lunch Rush’s window.

Kirishima blinks, before turning wide eyes to Katsuki, remembering the conversation from the sports festival. It’s clear Kaminari has been sitting with the losers up until now, but now that Katsuki’s here the red-head is torn.

“Uh, he’s. Uhhh.”

Katsuki’s too busy glaring holes into the back of Kaminari’s head to help him.

After a few moments of this, Kaminari turns around, as if sensing the eyes on him. He looks around like a deer caught in headlights before he catches Katsuki’s glare and startles.

Katsuki holds the eye contact for a long moment, before huffing and jerking his head towards the table where they’re seated.

Kaminari’s eyes widen, a hopeful look coming into his eyes.

He raises a hand to point at his own chest as if to say ‘ _me?’_

Katsuki shrugs in response, before pointedly turning his gaze to the empty table at Sero’s side.

The dumbass seems to light up visibly, before practically skipping over to their table with his food.

“Hey guys!” he says happily. The others chirp their greetings in response, equally cheery like a bunch of obnoxiously preppy golden retrievers.

Katsuki’s phone vibrates with a message in his pocket, and he fishes it out to see that Hatsume has decided to start texting him again.

**walmart entrapta**

hey bestie wya

1:21pm

**walmart entrapta**

i’m all by my lonesome up here :(

1:21pm

**walmart entrapta**

no hunky hero boy 2 keep me company :((

1:22pm

**walmart entrapta**

when will my bestie return from war :((((

1:22pm

Katsuki grimaces, remembering that Hatsume usually joins him on the roof for lunch. He squints at the text for a long moment, before turning his attention to a chattering Kirishima.

“Oi,” he says, nudging the red-head. “Oi, Shitty-hair. You good with me calling Hatsume down here?”

Kirishima blinks, before his expression lights up with recognition.

“Oh! Of course she can!” he beams, before turning back to his conversation.

“Who’s this _Hatsume_ you speak of?” Sero says, eyes suddenly sharp and interested.

“You’ll see,” Katsuki responds evasively, knowing the pink-haired girl is probably going to scare the living shit out of them within five minutes of meeting them.

**Me**

cafeteria with the losers

1:24pm

**Me**

come down if you want

1:24pm

**walmart entrapta**

UR CHEATING ON ME???

1:25pm

**walmart entrapta**

WITH HERO STUDENTS????

1:25pm

**Me**

yes

1:25pm

**walmart entrapta**

WHAT DO THEY HAVE THAT I DONT

1:26pm

**Me**

guess you’ll have to come down and find out

1:26pm

She doesn’t reply, but not even a minute later the cafeteria door slams open unnecessarily loudly, and a head of familiar pink hair storms in.

“Hello homewreckers!” she announces, dramatic as always, as she flops down beside Katsuki.

“Homewreckers?” Ashido echoes quietly, eyes wide.

“Hello cheater,” the pink-haired girl sniffs in Katsuki’s direction, pulling out another one of her many contraptions and beginning to tinker with it.

“Mistress,” he replies carelessly, scrolling through the news on his phone.

Hatsume chokes, along with most of the table (although the others are more shocked than indignant).

“Mistr—are you saying _I’m_ the side chick _?_ So I’m not even the main woman in your life—”

“Did Bakugou just call her a mistress?” Sero says slowly.

“You’re thinking of the wrong definition, dumbass.” Katsuki mutters, offering Hatsume an egg roll in an attempt at reconciliation. “Don’t make it weird.”

“I don’t think any of the definitions could make this any less weird, man,” the brunette responds carefully.

Hatsume sniffs but accepts the egg roll, seemingly mollified, and lifts her head briefly to flash a peace sign at them.

“Hatsume Mei, at your service!” she chirps, before returning her attention to her work.

“You’re the support girl from the sports festival!” Kaminari cries suddenly, and the others’ eyes brighten with recognition.

“Sure am,” she murmurs, before sticking a hand out, palm upturned expectantly. “Knife. Needle-point.”

Katsuki drops the requested knife in her palm, not looking away from his phone.

From the edge of his vision, the others at the table recoil.

“ _Dude_!” Sero hisses. “Where were you even hiding that?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Katsuki muses. Hatsume offers the knife back when she’s done and he slips it back into the pocket of his blazer.

“Man, that’s freaky as hell,” Kirishima mutters, staring at where the blade had disappeared, and earning a few grumbles of agreement. Hatsume steals another one of Katsuki’s egg rolls, and he smacks the back of her hand but lets her take it anyway.

It’s an odd dynamic, but he guesses the idiots could be worse company.

As the exams draw nearer, tension rises amongst the students. Katsuki doubts the exams will really be _that_ bad, considering he’s studied for them, but the unfamiliarity makes them seem infinitely more daunting than they otherwise would be.

He takes up jogging with Iida in the mornings. It’s awkward at first, following Hosu, but they settle into a dynamic soon enough. Their route circles the park near the school, and it’s surprisingly not too annoying. Iida can shut up when it’s called for, so most of their jogs pass in light silence. He's actually... oddly quiet. Katsuki's not sure if it's because they're not in class, or because it's so early in the morning. Maybe it's Katsuki himself. It doesn't matter—he knows better than to look a gift horse in the mouth.

One particular highlight of their revision weeks is the day that Shinsou approaches him. The troll doll-haired asshole looks like he’d rather be anywhere else, stalking up to him after school and mumbling something so low that Katsuki almost misses it.

 _Almost_ being the key word there. He does end up catching it, but asks for Shinsou to repeat himself, mostly out of spite.

It earns him a venomous glare.

“I _said_ ,” the boy mutters, “that Aizawa showed me your entrance exam footage.”

“Wow!” Katsuki says, beaming. “How’d that go for you? I hope it was a good show.”

Shinsou looks like he wants to gut him alive. It makes Katsuki’s heart sing with vindictive joy.

“It wasn’t terrible,” he mutters, jaw clenched so tight a vein in his temple makes an appearance.

“He told me to—train with you.”

Katsuki tilts his head, widening his eyes guilelessly.

“That’s a funny way of asking for help,” he says cheerfully. “But sure! I’ll be sure to teach you a lot about, ah, what did you call it that day? _Getting everything handed to you_ , wasn’t it?”

Shinsou sucks in a deep breath, and for the briefest of moments Katsuki thinks the guy’s actually gonna punch him. Instead, he exhales shakily and gifts Katsuki one last cold glare before storming off.

Katsuki lets him go, mostly because he’s aware of the fact that Shinsou hadn’t actually gotten his number or arranged a date with him. This means, he notes joyfully, that Shinsou’s either gonna have to approach him _again_ , or ask Aizawa for his number.

This thought has him grinning so widely that the students around him recoil, giving him a wide berth.

Another thing that seems to change in the leadup to his exams is the _nightmares_. This is particularly frustrating, mostly because they rarely make any damn sense. In the past, he’s had the occasional cryptic dream, of things that he would call memories if not for the fact that they’ve never actually happened before. Now, though, it seems that the stress of the impending exams combined with everything else has them increasing in frequency, and he finds himself waking in a cold sweat multiple times a week.

One night he dreams of fighting. Darting around in a grey-toned room, where grime clings to the walls and the mat is hard beneath him. He feels an arm around his neck, big and thick and suffocating as his opponent looms over him mercilessly until he taps out. He tastes the salty sweat on his upper lip, can smell it mingling with the stale dust and defeat that lingers in the air following the fight.

Another night, he’s being wheeled down a corridor, with shiny grey bricked walls and yellowing lights. He’s straining against the gurney he’s restrained to, cuffs tight and stinging against his wrists and ankles. Then there’s a sharp pain in his lower abdomen, so excruciating that he wakes himself up and finds his arms wrapped tight around his midsection, chest heaving like he’s just run a marathon. His hair is plastered to his forehead and nape, mouth painfully dry and scratchy when he swallows. 

He leans back, gazing at the space between the headboard of his bed and the wall, and runs his fingers over the word he’d carved into the plaster a decade ago.

Other nights, though, he dreams of Stain. Dreams of the man standing over Iida’s bloodied, limp body. He feels the villain’s crimson gaze on him as he whispers again, “ _There’s something about you, Bakugou Katsuki_.” He says it earnestly, _warmly_ , and his eyes are heavy with intent.

Iida, even in his death, watches Katsuki. Eyes glazed over and unseeing, limbs motionless where they lay splayed and soaking in puddles of blood. 

“You let me go,” Stain rasps proudly. Unspoken in the air is the implication; ‘ _You did this_.’

Katsuki will look down, then, to his own hands, and see the red that stains them, dripping between his fingers and onto the rough gravel floor. It soaks into the rubble, mingling with the crimson that pools around his classmate’s unmoving corpse.

He comes to hate the colour, over these weeks.

The nightmares about Stain are somehow both the best and the worst of these nights simultaneously. The best because they actually make some sense—Katsuki _understands_ these ones—and the worst because the reality of them makes him feel that much more guilty over them.

It’s the mornings following such nightmares that Katsuki feels the worst when he goes to meet Iida at the park.

For all that Stain features in Katsuki’s nightmares, he’s surprisingly absent in the real world. Following Hosu, the villain has completely disappeared, leaving the media reeling. The forums online create elaborate theories, about how he’s gone into hiding, or been captured or killed by the heroes. But no one can offer a definitive answer—not even Katsuki. He’s left wondering, too, with no one to turn to about it. He daren’t ask Iida or Todoroki, lest he disrupt the tentative peace they just managed to create following the events of Hosu.

Katsuki ponders, briefly, if he could find the villain if he went searching near the conbini where they had first met. He shoves the thought away almost instantly, reminding himself sternly that he shouldn’t be seeking out a known murderer in the first place.

  
Three weeks from the exams, he finds himself ambling around the local market areas. His classmates are all busy with studying, spending most of their time revising or relearning the content and training away. Katsuki does, too, but he’s always been on top of his school work so he doesn’t feel the need to cram the way some of the idiots he hangs out with do.

Thus, he’s left alone and wandering around, attempting to take a _break_ to prevent himself from burning out.

He buys some freshly-pressed pineapple juice from a street vendor, for the sake of having something to do with his hands and a purpose for the trip.

It’s when he’s pushing his straw around the half-empty cup, eyeing the market stalls at the side of the road, that he feels it again. 

A prickling itch at his nape, making him fight the sudden urge to hike his shoulders up to his neck. He turns around, slowly this time, aware of the busy marketplace.

It takes Katsuki remarkably little time to find his admirer, mostly because just like the previous two times, the man is standing unmoving amid his bustling surroundings. He’s still staring straight at Katsuki, still wearing that neatly ironed suit. But this time when their eyes meet, gold against crimson, the other doesn’t flinch back. Instead, he holds Katsuki’s gaze steadily, and after a long moment, he tilts his head ever-so-slightly. 

Katsuki swallows thickly, before taking a step towards the stranger. The latter doesn’t move backward this time, simply watching as Katsuki takes another, and then one more. When he finally stands before him, they watch each other for a moment. This close, he can see the details of the man’s face. The red hair, a deep sort of burgundy that’s tied back in a smooth ponytail. The puckered scar that intersects the left corner of his pursed lips, so small that it would be invisible from any further a distance. The stranger has an austere air about him, terse and somewhat intimidating. 

“Bakugou Katsuki,” he says. He lifts a hand from his side to display a badge wallet that holds an ID card with his own face printed on it, along with bold lettering at the top that says ‘HPSC’. 

“My name is Nakashima Mamoru. It’s good to finally meet you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi hi hi!! sorry to all of you that commented on the last chapter and haven't received a reply, i'm trying to get to as many as i can!! i typically try to reply to most of the comments i receive, but i've been kind of having a shit time mentally lately and the comments have just been piling up. i had about 500-ish to reply to across all my fics last i checked, but i've been getting through them slowly :') if i /do/ end up missing your comment, i'm really sorry, it's fully unintentional! it's getting pretty hard to keep track of which ones i've replied to, so please forgive me,,, i've been able to reply to less and less comments with each chapter, but this under no circumstances means that i am not seeing all your lovely comments!! sorry again, and please do not feel discouraged from leaving your feedback <3
> 
> thank you to the lovely jess, shou and bern for beta-ing!!! (three betas?? yeah i know this chapter was a mess i'm sorry for putting you three through it)  
> also since i actually received a lot of super cool responses to my question on the last chapter, i'm gonna leave a new one here :0 what's your favourite bnha headcanon that /feels/ like canon but isn't?

**Author's Note:**

> there is!!!! art!!!???
> 
> [first art piece by baybeered on tumblr, depicting katsuki with his electroshock nunchakus!!](https://baybeered.tumblr.com/post/620315927357030400/i-read-wonhaebunnys-fic-blackugo-widow-and)  
> [second piece by my-chaotic-academia!!!](https://my-chaotic-academia.tumblr.com/post/622344453835898880/art-inspired-by-wonhaebunny-s-fic-blackugou)  
> [third piece by artandcheesecake!](https://artandcheesecake.tumblr.com/post/624180510055415808/im-briefly-resurrecting-this-tumblr-account-to)  
> [a gorgeous feral katsuki from iski!!](https://katsukiski.tumblr.com/post/624799090420727808/i-drew-katsuki-inspired-by-wonhaebunny-s-amazing)  
> [another wonderful piece by luna here!!](https://lunadragongem01.tumblr.com/post/628384695342759936/wonhaebunny-hope-you-like-it)
> 
> they're all insanely good, i'm still reeling at the amount of skill y'all have tbh :') please do check them out if you have the time :D  
> i have been asked about this before so i thought i could just clarify it here: i am absolutely happy for anyone to make art of my fics, all i ask is that you credit and, if you're comfortable, tag me so i can see your amazing work!!
> 
> thank you all for reading, please feel free to leave a comment if you're enjoying it or have any feedback!! <3
> 
> my discord server can be found [here!!](https://discord.gg/cRuf6aG)
> 
> my tumblr and twitter are both @wonhaebunny, same as on ao3!!! i love making new friends and chatting about fic, so feel free to add me!!!  
> other non-permitted links can be found at the top of my tumblr ;)  
> (can i say that? am i allowed to say that? please don't take down my account lmao)


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